I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time." The object of this Bill, as disclosed in the Long Title, is to make provision for the regulation and control of the public right of fishery in tidal waters in which formerly a several or exclusive fishery was believed to exist, and was enjoyed as of right, and to make provision for other matters relating to or connected with the matters aforesaid. The Bill deals with fisheries in tidal waters where, as in the case of the River Erne, a private claim of exclusive right to fish existed, but where the courts have decided that no such claim did in fact exist. I think the various sections of the Bill are very clear, but the easiest way to explain what the Bill contains is to go through them. Under Section 2, this Bill may be applied by order to any tidal water that would come under the provisions of the Bill. As the law stands at present any person proposing to fish for salmon, or to use a net for the catching of trout, must have a licence from the board of conservators, and must pay the duty specified in the Fisheries Act, 1925. The conservators have that income. In addition to that, in cases such as the River Erne where you had a private ownership, there was a rate paid on the valuation of the fishery also to the conservators. From those two sources the conservators got their revenue. In the case of the River Erne also, I should like it to be known that the income from the rates on the private property was very substantial. The Ballyshannon Conservators were able, as a consequence, to look after some other small rivers in their district as well as the River Erne. Now that the fishery of the River Erne has become public property of course that rate is no longer collectible, and we must, therefore, provide another income for the conservators in that district. Section 4 provides that instead of the ordinary fishery licence that would be got under the 1925 Act there will be a special local licence. The special local licence is introduced in order to make up for the loss of the income from the owners of the estuary of the River Erne. In that way we hope to make good, in part at any rate, the loss of income to the conservators in that district.
There is, of course, an additional cost also on the conservators in that district. They have now not only to carry out the duty they carried out previously, but they have also to protect the fishery which was a private fishery and is now a public one. When that fishery was a private one, the owners, of course, looked after the protection of it to a great extent.
Sections 5 and 6 merely provide machinery for the issue of special local licences. Section 7 provides penalties for fishing in tidal waters by unlicensed persons. The penalties are severe, because in a case like this it is found from experience that, where the public get a right to property for the first time, it is rather hard to maintain the law for some time. Section 8 deals with the regulation of these public fisheries. If you take rivers where there is a long tradition of public fisheries, such as the Boyne and the Slaney, there is a sort of self-regulation amongst the fishermen on those rivers. There is a sort of tradition amongst themselves as to how the fishery should be regulated: who should fish first; what hours they should fish; the number of boats that might go out at one time, and so on. There is no such thing on the River Erne for the present, and, therefore, it may be necessary for an officer of the Fishery Department to regulate the times and the hours at which the different boats may fish; the number of boats which may be allowed to fish at one time, etc. Section 8 provides the machinery for that purpose.
Section 9 is the usual section giving authority to an officer of the Department to ask any person fishing in the district, or having any instrument or engine for the purpose of fishing, to produce his licence. Section 10 only provides for the making of returns. Section 11 provides for the forfeiture of the licence in case of an offence. Section 12 is necessary, because the holder of an ordinary licence has a vote at the election of Conservators and it is necessary to give the same right to the holder of a special local licence as the holder of an ordinary licence would have in regard to voting for the Board of Conservators.
Section 13 provides that the Board of Conservators, having collected the special local licence fee, will be entitled to keep what would be the ordinary licence fee if this Bill had not been introduced. The difference between that and the total licence fee paid, that is the extra amount, will be paid over to the Minister for Fisheries. The Minister will pay that into the Exchequer. Then the next section provides that the Minister may pay to the Conservators the amount that will be required by them to carry on and protect the fisheries. The two sections combined, at any rate, have this effect, that we may levy on the fishermen a certain amount over the ordinary licence fee that they would pay if they were fishing in any other river towards the expenses of the conservators, but the conservators are not entitled by right to that extra amount. They may get more or they may get less from the Minister. They will get what they will require in the ordinary way to protect the fisheries.
Section 16 provides for a condition that exists on the River Erne, at any rate, and may exist on certain other rivers. In the South of Ireland, for instance, the same board of conservators would protect a river from its source to the mouth. The River Erne, however, crosses the Border, and the Ballyshannon Board of Conservators, therefore, can only protect the river as far as the Border. The Enniskillen Conservators, who are inside the Border in the Six Counties, are responsible for the protection of the upper part of the river. It is very important that the Enniskillen Conservators should protect this river because, if they withdrew the protection from the upper reaches of the River Erne, our salmon fisheries would naturally be very much injured. Under the present law, the conservators on the Free State side have no authority to contribute anything to the conservators on the other side of the Border in the Six Counties. This section gives the conservators on the Free State side authority to pay a certain amount to the conservators on the Six Counties side of the Border towards the protection of the River Erne in their territory. That was provided for up to this in another way. The people who claimed to own the River Erne paid out of their own funds a certain amount per year to the Enniskillen Conservators for the protection of the River Erne inside the Six Counties Border.
The only other matter that I need draw attention to is the last section, which provides that this Bill will expire at the end of 1935. The reason for that is that we hope to have a report from the Commission now sitting by the end of this year or the beginning of next year and we hope, therefore, to be in a position by the end of 1935, at any rate, to have a more comprehensive Bill dealing with inland fisheries in general passed by the Oireachtas. It will not, therefore, be necessary to continue this Bill. I hope, beyond the end of 1935.