BIM chief executive Richard Donnelly
As Bord Iascaigh Mhara prepares to mark its 75th anniversary in 2027, Richard Donnelly, the first chief executive in some time to bring decades of hands-on industry experience to the role, talks to Lorna Siggins about his career around the world’s fish markets, BIM’s push to diversify Ireland’s seafood diet beyond salmon, and the pressures facing the industry.
When Richard Donnelly grew up near the pier in Dun Laoghaire, little did he think he might not only be working with, but also later leading, a State organisation located close to that same waterfront.
“We were all thrown in off the pier at five years of age into the sea, and my uncle and my dad would do the spear fishing and the lobster pots off the coast,” the newly appointed Bord Iascaigh Mhara (BIM) chief executive says.
He remembers at the age of 11 witnessing construction of what was then a new office for BIM on Crofton Road overlooking the Coal Harbour in 1982-83. He hopes to be leading BIM when it marks its 75th anniversary in 2027.
“We’d be out on the water off [Dalkey’s] Bulloch Harbour and in Scotsman’s Bay, and we had holidays down in Baginbun in Co Wexford. So, I was going to do marine biology, end of story…”
Donnelly studied that subject in Trinity College, Dublin, and his masters’ degree focused on biological controls of parasites in salmon farming.
From Donegal hatcheries to the world’s fish markets
For that work he was based in Donegal in 1989, where Fanad Fisheries paid for his postgraduate degree. “I was very fortunate, and then I had a follow-on job working with Fanad in the hatchery. So as a young Dub up in Donegal, it was a great experience.”
He worked on cleaner fish – the first time it was ever trialled, although it took 30 years to become standard. “I saw the fish clean the lice and thought this was going to be a great business,” he recalls. At that time, the chemical treatments were efficient, but developing disease resistance was inevitable. “And that’s why the fish farms came back to using the cleaner fish now, both wrasse and lumpfish.”
He spent two years living in Fanad, and is still in touch with colleagues, including Catherine McManus, now head of Norwegian-owned Mowi Ireland, which Fanad Fisheries became integrated with in 1981-1982. “She arrived a year ahead of me and Jan Feenstra [former long serving head of Mowi Ireland] was also there as well.”
After leaving Fanad Fisheries, Donnelly worked in a number of different areas, setting up an eel farm where he developed his business skills, and working with the Central Fisheries Board (now Inland Fisheries Ireland) for a number of years.
“I then had the opportunity with BIM to be posted down to Wexford as a regional officer there for a couple of years. I only lasted a year as I wanted something a bit more commercial.”
“I joined Pan European Fish Auctions in Belgium where I met Skipper editor Niall Duffy. We worked together at that stage. I was based in Zeebrugge, but my job was taking me around the world as I had to source fish for the fish auction.”
“So, it took me off to Asia, North America, South America and so on to try and source different types of fish. Even though that was the nineties, there was a realisation that the fish auction needed more and more fish.”
“I worked there for a number of years and had a team of 12 people around Europe. That brought me to the international side of the fishing industry, and I saw all the different aspects of fishing, aquaculture, sourcing, trading. I was seafood manager for the auction to source supply, and it was an absolutely fantastic time and a great experience. Having that commercial side really stood to me in the sense of learning that this was how the business works.”
“Fortunately, I got the chance to come back and take up a post as business intelligence executive in BIM. BIM still had the marketing role at that stage, and I was involved in international markets working with BIM’s overseas offices. It was a slight change to what I was doing, but it was a great opportunity.”
“Then I left BIM again and went into trading in seafood with Abbeyfeale Foods. I traded seafood mainly into Algeria, Egypt, the Middle East – they were the major markets. I bought some fish from Ireland, but the main trade was New Zealand, India, South America, Russia. It was nothing but seafood for me.”
“I was seeing the different species, the pressures, the businesses, and seeing the Irish companies at many different trade shows around the world, so I’d have known the Irish industry for a long time back.”
“Then I had the opportunity to come back to BIM again and was appointed director for innovation services. I was then appointed interim chief executive for six months from last November before being appointed chief executive.” As he puts it: “That is 30 or 40 years of a blink in seafood…”
Adjusting to life after Bord Bia took over marketing
The Government’s decision to assign BIM’s marketing role to Bord Bia in 2009 involved consolidating the marketing function of all Irish food. The move was one of a series of public service cuts recommended by economist Colm McCarthy in his “Bord Snip Nua” report for government after the 2007-2008 crash. Bord Glas also lost its marketing role at the same time, Donnelly recalls.
He believes BIM has adjusted well, in that “we work very closely with Bord Bia”. As an example, he points to projects “on spurdog, spider crab, ling, ray, gurnard” to develop markets. “Traditionally you had markets in Germany and US for the dogfish, but you need to know how to fillet and cook them as they are a cartilaginous fish which requires a certain skill.”
“We are doing a lot of work on exploring markets with Bord Bia. Obviously, the quota has gone up for spurdog.”
“Spider crab is the most beautiful product, but it is not just finding the market. The processing, handling and extracting of that meat is very price sensitive, and you are dealing in a high-end luxury market which is very competitive. Spider crab, like snow crab, is an expensive product and the consumer is price sensitive. We are looking at ways to handle and process it better.”
“There are a number of processors doing that, and Bord Bia is doing an excellent job in marketing through its trade shows.”
Ireland’s addiction to salmon
The EU is importing over 80 per cent of its fish, and Ireland mirrors that shocking trend. Asked why certain Irish processors are receiving large grants when most of the fish they are handling is imported, Donnelly responds: “There is nothing unusual about this, if you look at Europe. The majority of that fish being imported by Europe is salmon.”
“You go to Spain, you go to France, you go to Germany, you go to Belgium, you go to the UK and you go to Ireland, and the number one species consumed by everybody there is salmon. Spain only last month changed over to salmon being the number one species – see the cultural shift.”
“The question is why are they doing this? One, they want to eat a nutritious product, two, they want something that looks appealing and is easy to cook, and three, it is available 24/7 and 12 months of the year.”
“Retailers love that, the food service loves that, so it is a fantastic product. And I think it is – I have no problem with farmed salmon whatsoever; I eat it regularly.”
“As to why it is so successful in Ireland – what Keohane’s are doing is taking a raw material product, transforming it into a consumer ready meal that is accepted by the retailers, and therefore generating over 500 jobs in a regional community such as Bantry. That is a fantastic story. Could that happen without imported raw material? Absolutely not,” Donnelly contends. “That business would not exist without it. So therefore, as an island nation, we do have fabulous species, but we do not have enough of the consumer-demanded species available to us.”
“We are trying to encourage interest in a diversity of species. We don’t want to see everybody just eating salmon – obviously Irish organic salmon being the premium one – but we want to see the consumers being aware of and educated in relation to the diversity of species available.”
Building the seafood academy
“We are doing a project working with the food service, also with the fishmongers, and it is called our seafood academy.”
“What we are trying to do there is to work with those species that we talked about such as the dogfish, the megrim, ray and those underutilised species – which we should really call signature species as they are often fabulous tasty.”
“We know it is very hard to get them into retail, as retail just wants salmon and prawns. That’s where the margins are made. So we are trying to work with 70 fishmongers to show how to fillet, how to present these recipe offerings.”
“And we are asking the fishmongers also to go into schools to educate the transition year students and ask them are they aware of these other species and here’s ways that you can cook them…”
“So it’s not BIM going into schools, but the fishmonger, as we believe in a community base and this can be a way to start giving business to a local community. The fishmonger is under real financial pressure, and so how do we drive more business towards them – that’s the idea. So, it is making the fishmonger a speciality retailer.”
“That has already started, as we have done a number of schools down in Waterford and we are just literally expanding the programme at the moment.”
“And the second part of that is that we are trying to look at food service channels, working with the large food service operators which are selling into places like Google, Tik Tok, Linked In, and so we have already started a programme there. For instance, Google produces 5,000 meals a day, and we have come up with a range of recipe ideas that the food service operator can do at the right price point.”
“Google has said ‘we don’t want to be just eating farmed salmon; we want a range of different species and Irish species if we can get that’. And so, we have done that and that is working really well.”
“We want to further expand that into the wider food service area. We are hoping to get these products into restaurants, so we are looking at working with chefs to get the price point, to get the preparation and to get the education.”
“We won’t solve the issue in that imports are critically important, but what we are trying to do is to maximise the return from where boats are landing here and see can we get that product into the domestic market first.”
“We have been working with the skippers of the vessels as well. They are critically important. If they don’t get regular supply in demand to this marketplace, we won’t be able to sustain supply.”
“So, we have to look at the whole supply chain, and that’s something that’s a bit different to the way things were done in the past. The fishing industry went and fished whatever it wanted and landed into the co-ops or individual operators. Now what we want to do is to try to integrate that supply chain and also educate the consumer at the other end to let them know there is a broad range of fish species available. They need to know where to get them, and to get them regularly.”
The approach taken by Galway market fishmonger Stefan Griesbach of Gannet Fish is “something we are trying to build on”, Donnelly agrees. Griesbach has spent the past 20 years trying to coax his regular buyers to try different species, such as wolf fish or megrim, rather than opting for salmon or cod. “He tells fantastic stories of all the different species he sells; he encourages you to eat periwinkles and so on. Spider crab, wolf fish have names that sound a bit off putting, but they are fantastic species.”
“Galway chef JP McMahon has come up with the Connemara sole, and again megrim is a beautiful fish. The price point for a flat fish can be really good on a plate, it just needs to be prepared properly, and bones made easy for the Irish consumer.”
“The opportunity is there, and that’s why we feel the fishmongers can work together as a collective.” That said, “it is not going to overtake the retailers where the vast majority of product is sold,” he points out. “Food services were worth just over 200 million euro, retailers were worth 550 million euro, and retail is notoriously difficult to get product lines in there, but we are still working on that.”
He points to companies like Shellfish Ireland and its crab paté sold in Dunnes Stores. “It is an absolutely exquisite product and, yes, it is expensive compared to other products, but the fact that Irish companies can innovate and do that consumer ready product is what we need to keep working on.”
A tougher climate for landings
The recent Business of Seafood 2025 report presents a sobering picture, recording an 11 per cent drop in Irish landings and a seven per cent increase in value. Quota volumes for 2026 have dropped by 28 per cent, and the value of pelagic quotas is down by 37 per cent.
Donnelly explains that there are three distinct sectors that BIM is responsible for – processing, fishing and aquaculture. “In the fifties, we were boat builders, we were banks, we were trying to build the industry, and in the seventies to nineties we were trying to build aquaculture which was unheard of before that. They were big changes that happened in BIM, and we had a fleet development programme in here, building boats up to 1995.”
“Now we are in a situation where the volume of fish has dramatically dropped, through the hard cuts of Brexit and the recent cuts in pelagic quota. We are really in a precarious position with that stock – mackerel was the mainstay for that fleet in Donegal.”
He believes there is value in blue whiting and boarfish – species not previously held in high esteem – as they have huge value in their proteins, lipids, and collagens. “These products can be made into other things, and we can look at the move from fishmeal to human consumption for blue whiting which is driving a higher price.”
“Also, this is not isolated on the global market. Mackerel is at the highest price point it has ever been at, and blue whiting is going to head to the highest price point it has ever been at. Demand is exceeding supply for wild captured fish globally, and we are in the knock-on effect for that.”
“The trouble is that if you are just relying on high prices in a global market, prices will go up and prices will come down. We really have to move our industry into the highest value that we can possibly get and make that consistent.”
“Where I am cautiously optimistic is that I think we have the skill base to do that, I think there has been significant investment, mainly on the processing side in both whitefish and pelagic. Doing more with the product – I know it sounds cliched – also involves attracting more product in as well.”
“Fish are not national, everything is interconnected. You look at the Peruvian anchovy fishery, and El Nino is going to cut that market and has driven fishmeal prices way high. So something that is happening in Peru is directly affecting us here. We need to think as an island nation but totally reliant on globalisation.”
Three themes shaping the industry
“Three key themes are affecting fishing, aquaculture and processing. One is access to raw material and the cost of that. Norway is still the number one producer of farmed salmon, and demand for salmon is really strong, and the price is reflecting that. The same thing is happening with the tropical shrimp market. People want more protein, including beef and chicken and are willing to pay the price for it.”
“The second theme is globalisation. We are an open economy, we have had foreign direct investment, some of it good, some not. Mowi has invested in our salmon farming here which is fantastic. We have to look at how we can get raw material outside of here. The Dutch don’t own a large coastline, but they have got access to raw material through acquisition. One of the major five companies is a major wild capture supplier in the world. So, we need to have that mindset, and we need to bring it to our seafood industry.”
“The third theme is climate change and changing species, such as octopus which is off Cornwall. The life cycle of the octopus is boom and bust, and it has never come into these waters in large numbers. This is the first time octopus has moved this far north, it is very unusual, and they are having significant effects on crab – eating crab and breaking into pots, but the fishermen are still getting higher prices for octopus than crab.”
“We need to be aware of our environmental changes and how rapidly it is changing around us, including migratory patterns of blue whiting, mackerel, cod.”
Answering critics on bureaucracy and the coast
There have been criticisms, most recently in relation to the fuel aid scheme, that BIM is proving to be too bureaucratic. It does have a digital first mandate, like other State organisations. Donnelly acknowledges that it has been difficult.
“We totally understand that literacy levels and digitisation are totally different in different areas. We are not forcing this on anyone.” He explains that the initial applications require a lot of information that won’t be required afterwards. “We are very cognisant of the difficulties, we are providing all the supports that are necessary, but digitisation is where we have to go.”
There have also been claims that BIM is losing touch with the coastline. However, Donnelly robustly defends the work of his regional teams, divided into inshore and aquaculture, and says they are living in the communities and know the issues. “The number [of regional officers] has actually increased, and the number of offices around the coast, compared to the 1970s and 80s, has more than it has ever been.”
The BIM fisheries colleges and coastal training unit are an essential part of that support and training and contact with the coast. However, due to cultural changes, people are “just not available for the chat”. “There is still a lot of kitchen table communication, and I would encourage that as we are predominantly a family business.”
“The culture of strolling down the pier in Killybegs or Dunmore East and talking to everybody is still there, but the people working on the boat are probably looking at their phones or are down on the deck..”
BIM’s seafood technical services are headed by Rory Campbell, and the insight and strategic services division is headed by Emmet Jackson. “We have a policy in BIM where people can work from any of our offices, so our teams are based all around now and not just in Dun Laoghaire.”
“In relation to trials on gear, it is very hands on, as we hire a fishing vessel for this type of work. We don’t have a dedicated vessel, and it is similar with aquaculture in that we don’t have a trial bay.” Innovations such as the hanging baskets for oysters have happened “in real time on real farms”, and the same can be said for innovations with fishing vessels, where skippers can see what works and what doesn’t.
Marine spatial squeeze and the blue bioeconomy
On the growing marine spatial squeeze, BIM is very cognisant of that. It is a participant in the Government’s seafood/offshore renewable energy (ORE) working group, which is currently in mediation over unresolved issues.
“We are very data driven and our units have looked at the impact of ORE around the world, and it has had an impact.” “There is a lot of emotion in relation to ORE and the location of marine protected areas (MPAs), and what we are trying to do is bring a rationale, particularly focused on the impact on our industry which is fishing and aquaculture.”
“We are all supportive of ORE and it is great for the environment, but we want to bring real clarity and data to the real impacts on an industry already here, including the social impacts.”
Donnelly agrees there is a lot of hyperbole around “the blue bioeconomy”, but says BIM is focused on aquatech and an untapped market. This includes supporting companies involved in fishing, such as engineering firms, to avail of opportunities in technology and product development related to aquaculture.
“Collagen is so sought after these days, and boarfish is full of collagen.” BIM is also working with Teagasc on high value elements in marine species.
Financing the future
BIM wants to prioritise high end jobs in coastal communities, and this will be a theme in the new strategy it is developing. While “there is money there”, such as EMFAFF funding of approximately 17 million euro every year and the 11-million-euro fuel aid scheme, Government funding and grants will “get you so far”.
“We need to think big. We have a very strong partnership with the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund.”
“And we need to be talking to the banks, we need to be talking to private equity… and we have secured 15-million-euro fund from the Hatch Blue blue revolution fund, earmarked for Ireland.” “Real transformative money can only be secured through the markets.”
‘This is my dream job’
Two of Donnelly’s immediate predecessors have gone to Bord Bia, and Caroline Bocquel left last year for Fáilte Ireland. Is BIM also a stepping stone for him?
“I have no aspirations to go to Bord Bia or Fáilte Ireland. Just look at my track record, and I feel it is an absolute privilege to head this organisation.”
“Once you are obsessed with fish and the fact that I grew up looking at our old building here and being from Dun Laoghaire …I’m passionate about it.”
“Whether it has been Wexford or Donegal, Algeria or Russia, I have been working in a very small global industry and I have friends in those places…Yes, this is my dream job…”
Richard, I wish you well from an old colleague.