An Irish judge has asked the relevant authorities to reconsider two salmon farming licenses submitted by Mowi -- previously ordered to be quashed -- rather than send the company back to the drawing board on an investment plan first devised in 2011, reports the Irish Times.

Justice David Holland determined he had jurisdiction to make the Aquaculture Licence Appeals Board and Ireland's minister for the marine reconsider the original applications submitted by Mowi for a planned €8.9 million ($9.5m) farm. 

He said it would be "quite wrong" to make Mowi go "unnecessarily back to the drawing board" by putting together new applications to rectify the appeals board's errors in considering its original.

He also noted his decision stemmed in part from the fact that Mowi's applications had not been assessed quickly enough in the first place.

The two salmon farm licenses were granted by the appeals board and the minister but later quashed in 2023 due to inadequate screening of the potential risks proposed "seal-scarer" noise devices posed to seals in a protected conservation area.

Mowi's plan for 18 salmon cages over some 42 hectares had also not fully accounted for the risk of escape, last year's decision ruled, after cases brought separately by Inland Fisheries Ireland, Salmon Watch Ireland and environmental litigant Peter Sweetman.