NI Department of Culture Arts and Leisure

“I have decided to issue licences to those netsmen who have provided undertakings to the Department not to fish…”

Pete Baker on March 13, 2012, 5:15 pm

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Evidently all those 161 publicly funded press officers were busy elsewhere… No press release to accompany the Northern Ireland Fisheries Minster Sinn Féin’s Carál Ní Chuilín’s statement to the NI Assembly yesterday. It was an update on departmental salmon conservation measures and, in particular, the Minister’s latest position on the issuing of commercial licences to net salmon. Here’s what the Minister told the NI Assembly In conjunction with the Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute (AFBI), conservation limits have been established for a suite of …

“This has been custom and practice, I have just put it in writing.”

Pete Baker on March 13, 2012, 3:14 pm

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Apparently, 161 publicly-funded press officers are not sufficient to keep Northern Ireland’s troublesome press pack in check… The Belfast Telegraph has gotten hold of a “confidential memo” [not yet online] from the NI Minister of Culture, Sinn Féin’s Carál Ní Chuilín, to the various arms-length bodies (ALBs) within the department’s remit setting out “a proposed media communications protocol”. From the BBC report DCAL said the objective was to promote best practice in communication and to ensure that the media and the public were …