At the stage where I left off last evening I was discussing the question of the homespun and handspun industry. I was pointing out to the Minister that there has been very great dissatisfaction in that industry, and that the dissatisfaction still exists amongst the spinners who, in preparation for the scheme that is to be put into operation by the Minister, had their spinning wheels repaired but now find that they are still without employment. The few people employed at either spinning or weaving were given a test piece to make under the direction of the Ministry. It was held that the spinners and weavers were not competent as a result of that test. The spinners resent that very much. They point out to the Minister that in those test pieces that were made there was no such thing as uniformity, for the reason that the test piece of cloth was woven from the products of five or six different spinners, thus making for lack of uniformity and making it possible for somebody to say "this fabric is not as good as it should be." If those test pieces were woven from the product of one spinner, there would have been uniformity about them and they would have made a better marketable product. If and when the Minister decides to help the homespun and handspun industry in Donegal, particularly the handspun that will give employment to spinners in the cottage homes, I do not see why he should not extend the benefits to other places as well as to the places I mentioned last night—to places like Dungloe and Gweedore.
In the particular places we were always quarrelling about, Ardara, Glencolumbcille, Carrick and down to Teelin and Killybegs, they have been waiting for two years for all the fine promises to be fulfilled in regard to the industry. One of those who is particularly concerned with the industry at Ardara, and who has in a very special way its interests at heart, when speaking of the Minister, referred to him as drawing a ring around the elusive Mr. Lynch. Whether he meant a twenty-four foot ring or a ring net I do not know. They want the Minister bound down to something definite, to something more than giving promises that are not fulfilled. The Minister, in speaking of the kelp industry, adopted an optimistic note, which I hope will be fulfilled. It is very necessary that experiments should be carried out to find the mineral salt content of kelp, the amount of iodine it contains and other qualities, and the facts put before the people engaged in the kelp industry, but I am afraid if we have to depend on the Minister's promise in regard to kelp as we did in regard to the homespun and handspun industries we are going, as they say in parts of the North, to "blow a cow home."
The question of carrigeen moss occupied the attention of the Minister, or at least he told us so. There is room certainly in connection with that for a lot of research work on account of the nutritive and medicinal qualities of carrigeen moss. It should be far more generally used than it is, and would be if it could be prepared in some more portable form than in its raw state. If a better market were found for that product the remuneration received by the people around the seaboard would be of very great help to them. I believe that some years ago a factory was established for the carrying out of experiments in the preparation of table delicacies, and so on, in carrigeen moss and other sea plants, at the Orkneys, but I do not know the result of them. I notice that in the Minister's speech any reference to sea fisheries was conspicuous by its absence. It was very strange the Minister did not deal with the question of sea fisheries at some length. There must be a reason. Perhaps we can find the reason. Before we come to that I would point out a thing that should be well known to most people in this country, or at least to those who live near the sea or on the seaboard, and that is that the small uneconomic holders along the seaboard were, years ago, able to eke out an existence by devoting part of their time to inshore fishing. That industry, so far as they are concerned, has been almost completely wiped out. It is impossible for the small uneconomic holders or even the wholetime fisherman who, with a small boat, was not able to indulge in fishing at any great distance from the coast.
The Minister knows perhaps better than I do what is the cause of that. The Minister knows that all the spawning beds were swept by foreign trawlers until the ocean bed was clean. We have brought up this question in the Dáil time after time but nothing yet has been done to prevent that. It might have been that the Minister had not power to do anything, but we must find an explanation as to why there was nothing done to prevent it. When the beds were destroyed all the inshore fishing became practically obsolete. If the Minister, for instance, as has been suggested to him, utilised one of the Department fishing boats, that boat could have been detached from the present fleet of fishing vessels and put under the command of a competent captain to investigate and to ascertain if along the western seaboard and at other parts off the coast there are not other untapped fishing beds. The Minister knows that any vessel of a fishing fleet is not going to detach itself from that fleet, from the present recognised fishing beds, for the purpose of what I might call prospecting for new ground. No fisherman, if he is fishing for a livelihood, either in his own boats or on a salary, can afford to do it, but it would have been possible for the Minister to detach one of those boats owned by his Department and allocate certain duties to that boat which the ordinary fishing vessel cannot do for itself.
At the same time, that should run hand in hand with other things, because if we were to expend money on finding for ourselves new fishing grounds in the present circumstances these fishing grounds would not be utilised by Irishmen but would be the common property of any foreigner who liked to come along and sweep the ocean bed. At the present time even in the fishing ground which we know, even from inside the territorial waters, we have the same thing happening for the last seven or eight years. The foreign trawlers can come inside the territorial waters and take all the fish there from the Irish fishermen. The French and English trawlers are better equipped for that class of work, with the consequence that they can come in, sweep the seas and take away a catch and thus take many thousands of pounds that should be going into Irish pockets.
We are expending—it is the same amount this year as last year— £8,000 on a patrol vessel. Time out of mind foreign trawlers have been seen fishing within the territorial waters of this State or, at least, what we ought to look to as the territorial waters of this State. Sometimes they have been arrested. They have been detained for a time and fines have been imposed but no fines have been collected. In one particular instance when a French crew was arrested and brought into the Civic Guard barracks in Killybegs—I referred to this before—the French crew gave an entertainment in the Civic Guard barracks, free, gratis and for nothing to the people of Killybegs. They contributed vocal and instrumental music, such American classics as "We have got no bananas" translated into French and sung for the edification of the people of Killybegs. If we are going to spend £8,000 per annum for purposes like that, providing an impromptu entertainment for the people of our seaside villages by foreign crews, I think, like the little boy in the school book long ago, we are paying too much for our whistle. The net result of the expenditure of this £8,000 on the Muirchu was an impromptu entertainment by Frenchmen in the Civic Guard barracks in Killybegs. It was a pity they had not the Dublin Broadcasting Station near there and then we might have all heard it. If we are to continue in that way I think the £8,000 had better be spent in some other direction.