What is killing Dungarvan Bay’s Oysters each August?
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The Pat Kenny Show. With timber living log cabins. Saturday and Sunday from 10am on Newstalk. Conversation that counts. Water is a defining feature of life in Ireland. We use it for business and for leisure and much of our tourism economy is based on it. So maintaining its quality is a serious matter and to date our record has been somewhat patchy. In a few minutes I'll be joined by Irish Times climate and science correspondent Caroline O'Doherty. But first, I want to speak to the general manager of a Dungarvan-based oyster farm whose business is facing ruin following three disastrous seasons in the last seven years, in which 70% of her entire crop of oysters was killed for reasons unknown. Cliona Vic-Gillicudda, good morning and welcome.
Good morning, Pat.
What is causing the repeated August die-offs of oysters in Dungarvan Bay?
Thanks for having me on. Can you tell us when this trouble started?
The first year was 2019 and then we had a few years with no big losses. And then in 2024 and again in 2025, in the same week of the year, the first week in August, When we returned from holidays, we found that an awful lot of the oysters were dead and continued dying for another week or two. After that, reaching a final amount of 70% of the fully grown oysters and around 60% of the half-grown oysters. And this was not just our company, this is all the companies growing oysters in Dungarvan. So you can imagine it's a huge blow to the industry. The sales normally between all the companies were around eight to nine million a year. And we reckon that between the full grown and half grown, we've lost in the region of nine million in each of those two years, each of those three years.
But I'm speaking specifically about the last two years. So we're doing everything we possibly can and just waiting until this year to see.
Whether it happens again. What sort of inquiries have been made and by what bodies to try to get to the bottom of this?
Well, we have brought together a lot of bodies, including Minister of State Dooley, BIM, Marine Institute, EPA, Irish Water, Law Pro, Waterford Council, I've probably left out a few, and we've got pretty good cooperation overall. BIM are
involved in testing the water for all kinds of stuff and so are the marine institutions this is our main hope of trying to establish what the problem might be and is there any any evidence of the cause of death of these oysters i mean when they're examined in by the scientists in the lab can they tell whether it was a toxin or whether it was something else or a virus a disease of some kind
Unfortunately, they can't really. The Marine Institute Fish Health Unit did test the oysters after the fact, of course, last year. There is a small amount of, there's an amount of Vibrio sturianis, but that's a bacteria that's latent really in every oyster growing area. Highly unlikely to be a cause of such specific varietalities. And I don't believe they were tested for chemicals at the time. But we do have a lot of monitoring from the Bay around environmental factors, you know, temperature, salinity, phytoplankton, biotoxins, and none of those revealed anything. So we're left with the impression that it's a pollution event of some sort.
So the question is, what happens at that particular time of the year? If it's the same week when this has happened over the three years when it did happen, is there any indication of any spillages, leakages that happen always in that particular week?
No, we don't have any indications. Unfortunately, I wish we had. It probably sort of coincides with, you know, a big increase in tourists, factory shutdowns, festivals, all of these kind of things. So it's really difficult. But we are testing everything that we know how to test between ourselves and the state agencies. And just to say that the oysters that do survive are particularly... fine to eat, and this hasn't happened in any of the other bays in Ireland. So it seems to be a very localised thing, both in terms of location and the time that it happens.
Now, listening to this conversation is Caroline O'Doherty.
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