On the Motion for the Adjournment, Deputy Blaney.
Private Deputies' Business. - Adjournment Debate—Lough Foyle Fisheries.
On a point of order, before this question is raised, are we to take it that the Minister for External Affairs will not be present during the proceedings?
I desire to raise this question under Standing Order 27, as the matter is one of urgent public importance. This question has been raised on two occasions since July, 1929. At that time several fishermen of Donegal who obtained licences from the Moville Board of Conservators, a Board appointed under the Executive Council of the Free State, were maltreated by agents of a body known as the Foyle and Bann Fishery Company. On the 20th July their nets were seized. The question was then raised, and, so far as I remember, the Minister for External Affairs replied that the attention of the Government had been drawn to the matter, that action was being taken, but that he was not in a position to make a statement to the House. That was in July, 1929. The matter was raised at a meeting two days ago of the Moville Board of Conservators. They state that they are of the opinion that the passing of resolutions is useless any more, and that unless the Executive Council take steps to protect their rights, in so far as the fishing on the waters of the Foyle is concerned, they will take the matter into their own hands. They further state that force was used against them by the agents of the company, who are not citizens of this State, and who got no authority from the Saorstát courts. They further state that if the Government do not come to their assistance and protect them, they will meet force by force. I do not intend do dwell at much length on this matter, beyond saying that, as a representative of the people of Donegal, I agree with the resolution, and I desire to state definitely in this House that if the Minister in his reply to-night does not state definitely that he is going to give protection to those people, and if he is of the opinion that force will not be used, I will take damn good care to see that force will be used, and I will take care to be there, even if nobody else is there.
This matter has been raised so often in this House that the details which led up to the dispute have been regarded as somewhat ancient history. I do not, therefore, intend to go into them, but, as Deputy Blaney pointed out, when I spoke in July last in this House in regard to the matter Mr. McGilligan stated that action was being taken but that he was not in a position to make a statement to the House. A period of ten months has elapsed since the Minister for External Affairs made that reply, and we want to know what steps he has taken in order to safeguard the interests of the Foyle fishermen and of the Moville Board of Conservators. At a meeting of the Board of Conservators yesterday the following resolution was passed:—
"That in view of the unsatisfactory state of affairs existing regarding the territorial aspect of the waters of Lough Foyle appurtenant to Saorstát Eireann, this Board discuss and consider the question of the Board's position in regard to the supervision of these waters as the position at present is very unsatisfactory, owing to the action of certain persons (non-resident of An Saorstát) adopting the role of bailiffs without the permission of this Board, and in every way flouting our authority as the Board of Conservators charged with the responsibility of exercising supervision over these waters."
Speaking to the resolution, the mover of it said that though he put down the notice of motion he felt inclined to say at the outset that the time for debate had passed and that they must resort to some other course than the adoption of resolutions or the making of representations and protests to bring the Government to a sense of its responsibilities in a matter which was of vital importance to citizens of the Free State in that area. He said further:—
"We are not going any longer to sit tamely looking on at the invasion of Free State territory and the denial of our rights. If necessary, force will be met by force. We should here and now issue a warning that if energetic steps are not taken forthwith by the Government of the Free State to protect our fishermen that obligation will devolve upon themselves. They will not shirk the obligation, and in discharge of it will be justified in taking all the means within their power, let the consequences of the conflict be what they may."
Lest some Deputies may think that the Board of Conservators are an irresponsible body, I would like to assure them that that is not the case. In seconding the resolution, Very Rev. Canon McCafferty, as reported in the Press, said that, the Government having set up the Board with certain powers, it was their duty to see that their rights were respected, not only by the natives of the place but by outsiders. He further said that they had not done so, and that inquiries and questions in the Dáil were always met with the remark that the whole subject was under consideration. With regard to the question of a several fishery existing on the Lough, he said that if the Foyle and Bann Company obtained a decree in the only court in which they had a right to obtain such, namely, the Free State court, well and good, but until such time as the question was settled in the Free State courts he held that it was the Government's duty to protect the fishermen in their occupation.
This matter, as I have said, has been raised here repeatedly, and the Minister stated that the whole question was having attention. So far as we here and the people of Donegal know, nothing has been done by the Government. A sinister silence prevails in regard to the whole matter. The Government have thrown a cloak of secrecy over the negotiations, and have adopted a hush-hush policy in regard to the matter. The same sinister silence prevailed before the Boundary Commission made the report which sacrificed six counties. We would like to know whether the same silence now is the forerunner of a betrayal similar to that which the people in that area experienced over the boundary question. As pointed out by Deputy Blaney, something has to be done at once, as the fishing will start shortly. If these men come in and interfere, as they did before, and come with arms, there is going to be a conflict. That is why we warn the House now that if any conflict arises it will be brought about by the inactivity or inaction of the Government, or by the silence which has prevailed up to the present.
This matter of the Foyle fisheries was raised in this House previously owing to certain action taken by the Foyle and Bann Company as lessees from the Irish Society. Three motor launches came into Lough Foyle on the 25th June last on board of which were fishermen from Doagh, Moville and elsewhere who held licences under the Moville Board of Conservators, who had their mandate from the Minister for Fisheries of the Free State. They were prevented from fishing inside what is called the several fishery that was supposed to belong to the Foyle and Bann Company. Two questions were involved. One, the question of the territorial waters of the Free State. According to the Free State law, even if the Free State were positive that they owned the territorial waters, these people to whom I refer were supposed to own the several fishery on Lough Foyle. The question of the several fishery is absolutely separate from the question of territorial waters. Everybody realises that, but everybody realises also that these several fisheries exist merely on so-called charters. In this case the charter was granted by King Charles II., and no one knows whether such charters are good, bad or indifferent.
As happened in the case of the Erne, the fishermen appealed to the courts, where they fought the question out and were told that unless the Free State took action to disprove the title of these people the fishermen were not entitled, even as private citizens, to sue in the courts to upset that charter or so-called charters held by people for several fisheries around there. There is a several fishery, as I have said, existing on the Foyle. At the same time, the people of this State are supposed to own the territorial waters and, even if it were held, which I am not admitting, that the Foyle and Bann Company owned the several fisheries on the Foyle, the Foyle and Bann Company committed an illegal act when they seized the nets in a boat which was merely sailing over the waters of the Foyle and in which were fishermen with licences issued by the Moville Board of Conservators, for which they paid £3. It was an illegal act to seize the nets according to the Free State law, or even according to the law of the Six Counties.
We appealed to the Minister in regard to the matter and my colleague, Deputy Blaney, has quoted his reply. The matter was brought up under the same Standing Order (27) by Deputy de Valera on the 31st July, 1929. Deputy Blaney, under the same Standing Order, has brought the question up here to-night and has thrown down the gauntlet. He has stated that if the Executive Council of the Free State do not take action to safeguard their own citizens we are going to take action definitely against anybody, whether from inside or outside the Free State, who interferes with their rights. As I say, my colleague has thrown down the gauntlet, and the fishermen of Donegal, from Doagh to Innishowen, will meet force with force. My colleague and I will be there personally and if we are put in jail we will ensure that there will be somebody else ready to cast down the gauntlet to anybody from the Six Counties or the Free State. The Minister for External Affairs seems to have nothing to do but to get his photograph taken signing treaties with Germany and other countries. There is, however, plenty of work for him to do at home, and if he does not do it, we are going to do it.
I should like to say right at the beginning that nothing is going to lead to a conflict in that area, with all the deplorable consequences which might follow, more than the ignorance prevailing about this matter and which has been steadily spread by people like Deputy Blaney and Deputy Cassidy. Deputy Carney says, what I am sure Deputy Blaney knows, and what certainly Deputy Cassidy knows, that there is no question of territorial waters involved in this whatsover. What is involved is not a right to waters, but a right to fishing—that and that only. Two sets of people are in conflict with regard to that. There is only one way to get that decided, and that is not by any mock heroics about being on the spot.
There are no mock heroics—we mean it.
If it is meant, that type of action has been met before and can be met again. Even if Deputy Cassidy joins the other two warlike gentlemen from Donegal, he can be met in the same way.
More warlike than you in the Black-and-Tan time.
That may be, but at present we are acting under ordered Government conditions and are not going to put up with threats of violence in order to get any case, good or bad, established. If the Deputy wants any answer to the particular type of threat used to-night, I want that to be understood as the answer.
What are you going to do to meet the force which will be used by the agents of the Foyle and Bann Fishery Company?
I am talking now about Deputy Blaney's mock heroics about a conflict. He will be in a bigger conflict than he imagines if he starts out to be the ringleader in any sort of misconduct.
The responsibility will rest on you. He has the right to protect himself at all events.
The Deputy can make a speech in his own time, if he has the ability to do it, and he should confine himself to that time.
I wish, sir, to draw to your notice the remark which the Minister has made. I do not think the Minister has a right to cast a reflection of that kind on a Deputy's ability. We are used to scurrility from him. It seems impossible under the Standing Orders to make him behave like anything else but a cad, but I think that when he indulges in these remarks the attention of the Chair should be drawn to it.
The difficulty is that Deputies appear to have two standards: one standard as to what they will say and another standard as to what they will listen to. Deputy Lemass has put the point of order in a way which clearly indicates that it is not a point of order at all; it is an opportunity for abusing the Minister. The Minister was not out of order in this particular instance.
Might I ask if the Minister will take any action, or what action he proposes to take against the representatives of the Foyle and Bann Fishery Company when they come to indulge in what he terms mock heroics against the citizens of the State?
One cannot get any indication beyond the mock heroics being performed by these people. This debate will have to be conducted as a debate, or else not proceeded with. If Deputies want an answer, they will get it. If they want to obstruct and do not want to listen, then they will continue as they are going on. This is a dispute with regard to a right to fishing. As to the foolish comments made by the mover of the resolution quoted at length by Deputy Cassidy, I do not think one of them has anything to do with the case under consideration. "The unsatisfactory state of affairs existing regarding the territorial aspect of the waters of Lough Foyle appurtenant to Saorstát Eireann," does not arise. If the waters were absolutely and clearly established as our waters, it has nothing to do with the question as to whether the Foyle and Bann Fishery people, being the lessees of the Irish Society, have a right to take fish from Lough Foyle, any more than if it were a matter of taking fish from a river clearly inside the Free State, and an Englishman had leased the fishery in a proper way and brought in Scotch and English servants in order to help him to preserve the fishery there. This talk, therefore, about the action of certain persons non-resident in the Saorstát is again so much verbiage and has nothing to do with the case.
Let there be a right to a fishery established and these non-residents of the Sairstát will be protected by our courts, functioning under our law, in upholding their legal rights. "Flouting our authority as the Board of Conservators charged with the responsibility of exercising supervision over these waters." Although there was raised here today a question of a licence, what has the licence to do with it? A man pays £3 and gets a licence to take fish out of waters that are in the ownership of other people.
Do you admit that?
Not the waters, but the fisheries—to take fish from those waters where the fish are in the ownership of other people. What has the £3 licence to do with that?
You admit that it is a several fishery?
I do not. I say if the case is established that there is a legal question of ownership at issue, the question of the territorial waters has nothing to do with it.
What has the Minister done since July last when the matter was raised?
I do not admire the Deputy's style of making his own speeches and I am not going to mould myself on it. The Deputy is giving me more opportunities to waste time. When people ask me what am I doing, what is their question addressed to? What am I doing about what?
What have you done since July last?
About what? About the territorial waters or about the right of fishing?
About the question put on that occasion.
Does the Deputy know what it was?
About the Six County courts trying to exercise jurisdiction over our territorial waters.
That has nothing to do with the case. I shall stand for cross-examination on this to-morrow night again, if the Deputy wishes.
What have you done since July last?
I will answer on the debate, but I will not answer in response to interruptions.
Does the Minister contend that the citizens of the Saorstát have no right to fish in Lough Foyle?
No. The fact that a man is a citizen of the Saorstát, or that he is not a citizen has not anything to do with his right to fish in Lough Foyle at present. The only thing that determines the right is: who owns the right to take fish from Lough Foyle? If a man pays £3 to the Board of Conservators, what does that entitle him to? To fish in waters if the waters are not privately owned. If the right to take fish is not a private right, the right of private property, then he can take fish in the area under the control of the Board of Conservators. I think the Deputy himself will admit that there is no insinuation that because a man pays a £3 licence he is entitled to fish over the whole area that is under the control of a Board of Conservators, whether the water be preserved or not.
I do not contend that, but I contend that if, for instance, he does infringe on that right the people whose right is infringed have the right of recourse to the Saorstát courts, but not the right to use force of arms, as has been done in connection with the Foyle and Bann Company.
There are two things. The action should be tried out in court. As to the other point, it is not really for me to interfere in this case. It is a matter which comes under various Acts of ours, the Larceny and the Fishery Acts, as to the protection which a man may give himself if he finds his property being encroached upon. Whether they have a right to use force is a question also to be tried out in court. It is not so clear as the Deputy seems to imagine. With regard to the special point of the necessity for taking action, we hold that action should be taken in our courts. We hold that there is a prima facie case established by long usage over many years in favour of the Irish Society and their lessees, the Foyle and Bann Fishery Company, but that that presumption is fast disappearing. There was a presumption, but that is fast disappearing owing to the unaccountable reluctance of the Irish Society, or their lessees, to come into our courts, and if that continues much longer the presumption will have disappeared.
They have sought for an injunction in the Six County courts and have got decrees.
Which do not matter to us. They do not matter to anybody. There is a right to a fishery to be determined that has to be adjudicated upon by a court.
A Deputy
Will you bring it before the League of Nations?
The League of Nations will certainly never adjudicate in a conflict of fishermen with regard to the right to fish in a certain area. The question of territorial waters does not arise in this case. I have been asked questions, always on the matter of the territorial waters. We have taken up the matter of the territorial waters time and again, and we shall continue to take it up. Even the matter of the right to get fish in that area we have also brought before the notice of the people concerned with a view to getting that issue decided in our courts, but it has not been done. We are not a litigant in this. There are two conflicting parties, and it is for them to take legal action with regard to the rights being decided. Either party can do it. But the case is not going to be improved, in fact whatever presumption there is on the side of the Irish Society, or their lessees, which, as I say, has been weakened by the fact that they did not come into the courts, will again arise if the people, on the other hand, who are asserting now a right which they never asserted prior to 1922, proceed to try and assert that by methods of violence. Whatever presumption there may be coming to the surface in their favour, will certainly be destroyed by any resort to force, and that is where Deputy Blaney, Deputy Carney and Deputy Cassidy make the situation worse than it was.
I related what transpired at the meeting. I wanted to know what you had done and you have not answered. Although you have been speaking for fifteen minutes you have only been quibbling.
The Deputy asked me what I have done. I asked him already did he mean on territorial waters or on fishing. If it is on the fisheries question, I have nothing to do. It is the courts have to do with that, and the courts can only move when litigants come before them. I can try to use persuasion on certain parties to come into our courts, but I certainly cannot compel them. Not even the Deputy, with all his mock heroics, could compel them. I can do nothing with regard to the fisheries.
You will come in with another "damin good bargain."
There is no question of a bargain. There is a question of two sets of people in conflict over fisheries, and there is a question of the legal method of settling that dispute, and there is an attempt being made to get that settled in a legal way, and I am going to persevere in that. I do not pretend that I shall get either party into court, but I certainly think that whatever chance there was of getting them into court immediately has been postponed by the language used to-night.
The Dáil adjourned at 11 p.m.