On the last occasion when we were discussing this matter, Deputy Ruttledge was referring to the necessity for bringing the game laws here into consonance with those in Great Britain and Northern Ireland. One of the worst features of this Bill is that there is no effort to view the question of game preservation, as Deputy O'Reilly has suggested, in a national manner, or approach it from the point of view of the production and replenishing of the game in the country. On the other hand, it does not seem to be in line with legislation in Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The Minister told us in his opening statement that the value of the game in this country was extremely great, and he quoted the example of Scotland. Scotland is on an entirely different plane, and when we are discussing this question, we have to bear in mind the entirely different circumstances of the Saorstát as compared with Scotland. There you have large landed proprietors who devoted generations to the cultivation and preservation of game. Here you have a peasant proprietorship, and you have not the land question properly settled. I submit that if you want to proceed on the lines of teaching the farmers to appreciate the value of game and the virtues of citizenship and of restraint in this matter, it would be much better to take the representatives of the farmers into consultation, and as has been suggested by Deputy Shaw, to have made some effort to get in touch with the County Committees of Agriculture or other representative bodies that could speak for the farmers, put the whole question before them, and ask them to give their views either to the Ministry or to a Commission that, in my opinion, could have been usefully called into being for that purpose. When you had got the farmers interested in the matter you could then make certain proposals to them.
This Bill bears all the defects of a measure recommended and sponsored by the Minister on the direction or instruction of a certain number of people, who undoubtedly are interested in game preservation. It is very valuable to have unselfish people of that class, but, as the Minister himself says, the farmers, the owners of the sporting rights, are the people who, in the long run, will have to undertake the brunt of this work. They are the people, he says, who will have to take the responsibility of ultimately preserving the game. Now, this measure comes along with a series of new prohibitions when the House has clearly expressed the desire, in the case of the Forestry Bill for example, that this question should be tackled in another manner. Certainly, the Minister ought to do the things which have been asked, that is, give a definite inducement to the farmers for the destruction of vermin, and reduce the £2 licence to 10/-. That is a matter that has been discussed in the House frequently and a matter that will come up. So long as you put on a very high licence on the one hand, and on the other hand give the farmer no inducement to destroy vermin do you think that any number of prohibitions or any legislation that can possibly be devised will attain this purpose as well as securing the co-operation of the owners themselves would do. I submit, therefore, the Minister has not met the point.
I have been looking up this matter and I found that in Great Britain a good many years ago an important committee recommended that the occupiers of the land should have the full rights of destroying ground game. If the Minister cannot give the occupiers that right he ought not simply to pass legislation prohibiting them from doing so. He ought to say that this is a temporary measure which he proposes to pass but which he realises is defective and that at a later stage of this Bill he proposes to make it more acceptable to the farmers.
Another matter is the question of holding up and searching people. I think that is capable of creating a great deal of dissatisfaction. It is not sufficient, and it seems to me only a quibble. It is not really providing a solution to give the Superintendent of the Civic Guard, or other persons nominated by the Minister, the right to hold up and search people and to seek entrance to certain places. I think the Minister in reply to Deputy Kent said that it was not suggested that people should have the right to trespass against the owner's wish. If that is so, I do not know what the meaning of the particular section is. It seems to me there is a clear right there for any person whom the Minister sees fit to appoint as representative to invade any premises or property and to search any person for game. I think that that is not the best way of dealing with the question. It would be much better to bring those people who are charged with destroying game, and who apparently are in the mind of Deputies, in a nebulous way, although not referring to them directly—it would be much better, since whole communities at present are practically living on the killing of rabbits, to bring them into the open to see what their case is rather than drive them underground. I submit, in the long run, it is like Prohibition in the United States. If the people want to do these things, if they want to go out and shoot at night and so on, they are going to do it in spite of prohibition. The best way is to get co-operation of the different classes represented in this matter and then produce a proper national measure and put the whole game question on a sound footing, and if necessary make the country, as Deputy Anthony suggested, a bird sanctuary for a certain period of time.