Fishing Licences (Moville District) Bill, 1951—Second and Subsequent Stages.

Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Agriculture (Mr. Bartley)

I move that the Bill be now read a Second Time. The prohibition of the issue of fishing licences proposed in this Bill is no more than a temporary administrative expedient rendered necessary by the impending establishment of a Foyle fisheries commission. It is expected that the main legislation will be before the Oireachtas early in the new year and that if it is enacted the Foyle commission will be established before the opening of the 1952 fishing season on the River Foyle. One of the duties of the commission will be to regulate the issue of licences, and it is, therefore, necessary that the position should not be prejudiced in the meantime by the issue of licences by the Moville Board.

A Bill in similar terms to suspend the issue of licences by the Derry Board of Conservators has, I understand, also been introduced at Stormont.

The whole essence of the Bill is expressed in Section 1 which is intended to operate so as to suspend the issue of all licences in the Moville district, save those for fishing with rod and line, until such time as a new licensing system can be set up by the proposed commission. The provision in subsection (2) whereby the issue of licences may be permitted by Order will enable the old system of licensing to be reinstated if for any reason the commission should not be in a position to issue licences in time for the statutory opening of the net-fishing season on the 16th April.

The second section is complementary to the first: it copper-fastens the prohibition of issue of licences by suspending the right conferred in such emphatic terms by Section 31 of the Fisheries (Ireland) Act, 1848, namely, that any person demanding a licence and tendering the appropriate licence duty

"shall be entitled to receive the same without any question or objection whatsoever arising either from the time when, the purpose for which, or the right in virtue of which he or they may desire to use such licence, or on any other grounds whatsoever".

The remaining sections of the Bill are those devoted to "Interpretation" and "Short title and construction".

General Mulcahy

I want to know whether it is clear that nothing in this Bill operates to deprive a person exercising a right at the present time from the exercising of that right in the meantime.

Mr. Dillon

Arising out of this Bill, I accept the Parliamentary Secretary's assurance that this is simply an interim measure to maintain the status quo until such time as the agreement is made whereunder this fishery will be taken over from private ownership of the Irish Society in London by a board representative of the Government of the Republic and the Government of Northern Ireland. I intended to mention to the Parliamentary Secretary the matter raised by Deputy General Mulcahy. If any circumstances should arise which operate to prevent the issue of licences to fish to people who had habitually that licence, I assume that appropriate measures will be taken to compensate them for any loss which an independent arbitrator might assess. I think it is the Parliamentary Secretary's hope that no such loss will arise and that it will be possible to issue licences for the coming fishing season according to the ordinary procedure of the joint board which by then will have been established and vested with its statutory authority. On these assumptions, I strongly recommend the House to extend to the Parliamentary Secretary every facility in order to prevent serious evil accruing to a very valuable fishery which is about to become the property of the people. I want, however, to mention one matter to the Parliamentary Secretary to which he might think it expedient to direct the attention of his Minister. Anyone familiar with Donegal knows that this question of the Foyle fisheries has been, for 25 years at least, the subject of much acrimonious agitation. Therefore, when the prospect of resolving this very thorny problem presented itself, I consulted the Taoiseach, and we were agreed that, as a number of other matters quite divorced from fishing arose, it was expedient to avail of the services of an officer of the Department of Fisheries with very long experience who knew all the details of the history of this problem, whose seniority vested him with a very special sense of discretion, and whose wisdom, acquired by seniority, justified the Minister for the time being in reposing in him a discretion which it might be improvident for a Minister ordinarily to remit in a member of the public service, no matter how trusted or how distinguished. Furthermore, matters relating to territorial rights and abstruse questions relating to fishery rights and ancient titles arose. In these circumstances, a great deal of the essential preliminary negotiations were conducted in very close consultation with the Attorney-General and the Minister for External Affairs.

In all the circumstances, I did not press on the officers of the Department of Fisheries to bend their time to a particular isolated problem in the way they ordinarily would if it were an everyday kind of problem. So far as I am aware, this particular matter became very much the prerogative of one particular officer of the Department. The staff of the Department, generally, may have experienced some embarrassment in that, at my direction, they abstained from familiarising themselves with the details of this matter, and any failure to have a complete grasp of all the finesse of the question, if such a situation now obtains, is to be attributed entirely to the express direction that I gave. This complication has arisen. Before I went out of office, the senior officer of the Department, who was charged with special responsibility for this matter, reached the end of his normal Civil Service period.

An Ceann Comhairle

I wonder what all this has got to do with the issue of licences?

Mr. Dillon

I will tell the Chair. He retired and I consulted the Government. A special arrangement was made whereby that officer was allowed to continue in the special capacity of adviser because it was realised, in relation to matters arising out of the Foyle, that the delicate situations which I have referred to were continually presenting themselves. Perhaps the Ceann Comhairle will better understand that this arises out of licences when I say that there has been, since the State was founded, an energetic argument as to whether anybody in the jurisdiction of Northern Ireland had any right to issue licences in respect of these waters.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy described this as an isolated problem.

Mr. Dillon

The Chair will see the importance of what I am about to say when I mention that the services of that officer were retained for the purpose of the Foyle Fishery Bill on a part-time basis. I understood that he was to remain available to advise in this matter and to conduct negotiations until such time as this matter was finally concluded. This is a matter which concerns three parties: The Northern Ireland Government, our Government and the British Government. I understand that, shortly after our Government went out of office, it was decided that the retention of that officer's services for the purposes I have mentioned, was no longer necessary. All I want to say to the Parliamentary Secretary is that this business will not be satisfactorily concluded until all the legislation in both Parliaments has been satisfactorily passed. If the termination of that officer's employment has been done at the instance of the Department of Finance, I want to suggest to the Parliamentary Secretary that he should bring to the attention of his Minister the desirability, if the Parliamentary Secretary agrees with me, of asking the Government to override the decision of the Department of Finance in this matter.

An Ceann Comhairle

Deputy Dillon knows quite well that he is now dealing with a purely administrative matter which cannot be related to this Bill. I have allowed the Deputy a good deal of latitude.

Mr. Dillon

This Bill, and the Bill it is designed to hold the fort for may be put in great jeopardy for want of expert advice at a crucial moment. Will the Parliamentary Secretary direct the attention of his Minister to that?

Mr. McMenamin

It is important that the Parliamentary Secretary should tell us what is the position of the fishermen who hitherto have been granted licences to fish in the Foyle. If this Bill were to deprive them of rights which they have hitherto enjoyed, I would immediately challenge the passing of it here. There is a further implication in this. Assume that the Moville Fishery Board is no longer authorised to issue licences, what becomes of the protection of the rivers Finn, Shrule and Mourne which feed the Foyle? There is no use in taking care of the Foyle because no fish are spawned or reared there. Who is to protect the rivers that supply the Foyle with fish, and provide those fishermen with the means of earning a living?

The river Foyle is of no value except in so far as it is fed by the fish which are spawned and reared in the Finn, the Shrule and the Mourne. I should like to know whether the Moville Fishery Board is without powers to protect those rivers. Unless it has powers to protect them, then in five or six years the fishing in the Foyle will be worthless. It will be of no commercial value. I want to have a clear and a definite undertaking from the Parliamentary Secretary, before I can allow him to have this Bill, that the rights of all those men who have been fishing in the Foyle and who have been making a living out of fishing there—they live exclusively from the money they make from fishing during the season—are protected.

What is the position going to be in regard to the issue of licences to them either by the board or the Department for the ensuing year? Is the position to be that nothing can be done now until the New Year? I take it that both the Parliament in Northern Ireland and this Parliament will be adjourned for the Christmas recess and so it is quite possible that nothing more will be done to expedite the passing of legislation in both Houses. One never knows what will occur. It may be that this legislation will not be effective at all at the commencement of the forthcoming fishing season.

Can we have an undertaking from the Parliamentary Secretary that this legislation will be in operation at the beginning of the fishing season? If we cannot have that, I at least want an assurance from him now that either by the Moville Fishery Board or the Department—I do not care which party does it—the interests of the fishermen, who have hitherto earned their livelihood from fishing there, and who have not other means of livelihood except the dole, will be protected, especially with regard to their right to fish during the forthcoming season. whether or not the joint legislation to be passed by the Stormont Parliament and by this Parliament has been completed before the beginning of the next fishing season.

Mr. Bartley

Matters have been raised on this Bill with which I am not prepared to deal. I want to say that the possession of a licence does not give an absolute right to a man to fish. He has got to ensure that, when he has got the licence, he is entitled to fish in those particular waters. That rule applies everywhere. The rights of the Moville Board to refuse to issue a licence on demand are not being interfered with, but the effect of such a refusal, of course, would not show itself until the close season had ended. In the normal course, applications for these licences are received in or about the commencement of the fishing season. Because of the very peculiar circumstances operating here, it has been thought that it is best to give the authority which issues such licences the power to refuse these licences until such time as the general legislation to be passed by the Dáil and by the Northern Ireland Government has, in fact, been passed and become law and the commission has been set up. There is nothing I can add to what I have read out in my opening statement. Deputy Dillon has brought up matters with which I am not prepared to deal on this particular Bill. What the Bill proposes to do has been very simply stated and no more can be added to it.