There is another matter that troubles me in regard to this and it applies to all legal bodies set up in this State—the claiming of exemption from all stamp duties and all rates. This commission is going to impose and collect rates from the owners of fisheries who will get no benefit at all from this commission, while the commission itself, owning what purports to be the most valuable part of the fishery in this whole area, is claiming to be exempt from rates. On what moral grounds do they claim the right to impose and collect rates from people to whom they give no benefits, while they themselves claim an exemption from any rent? They will collect this money and expend it in whatever way they like, but they in return are not giving any benefit to the owners of the tributary waters. That strikes me to be an extraordinary affair. If the owners of the tributary waters are to be liable for rates imposed by this commission, I submit strongly that the commission itself for this area over which they have control, should also be liable for rates. This House will not be doing its duty to the private owners of fisheries who get no benefit from this commission — none whatever — if they make them pay rates to this body while this body itself is to be exempt, though it has the most valuable fishery in the whole area.
There is another serious matter that has been overlooked and perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary will adjust it on the Committee Stage. Provision is taken in this Bill, in Section 55, to appoint inspectors and river watchers. No reference has been made to the men who occupy those posts now and there is no provision in regard to compensating them, assuming that they are dismissed from office. I hope that on the Committee Stage the Parliamentary Secretary will adjust that and that the present occupiers of all these posts — whoever they are and wherever they are — will be protected by an amendment by the Parliamentary Secretary provided that they are men of good conduct and there is no official report of any misconduct on their part.
Having said that, I wish this Bill success. I must say here and now and put it on record that unless the commission handle this thing with the greatest discretion and diplomacy I have grave doubts about its being a success. I want to emphasise to the Parliamentary Secretary that he will have to go into action at once if what was valuable property is to be restored to its former prosperous state. I rather suspect, from what I know myself and from what people tried to make me believe, that ample stocks of fish have passed through this river up to the tributary rivers. At a meeting I was called on to attend in connection with this matter, someone said that thousands of fish had passed up to the spawning beds. I want to tell the Parliamentary Secretary and his officers that that is absolutely and entirely untrue. Regarding the River Finn, which is the principal tributary of the River Foyle, I venture to give here and now a definite and positive opinion that last autumn there were not four dozen spawning fish in it. Therefore, I want to urge on the Parliamentary Secretary that this matter be taken in-hand at once and that active steps be taken, in whatever way the officers of the Department think it advisable, to have a hugh amount of spawn placed in the Mourne, the Strule, the Finn and the Reeland rivers, if we are to justify the expenditure of public money that we have paid for this fishery.
I do not know if the Parliamentary Secretary is aware or not that, for the last four or five years, since this prolonged lawsuit began, these rivers have been simply destroyed. I say definitely that in the last spawning season there were no fish up there to bring in sufficient run of fish in the future, within the next three to seven years, that will give a livelihood to those men who hitherto got a livelihood out of the River Foyle. That may sound alarming. The Parliamentary Secretary can hold an inquiry into it with the officers of his Department. The reports from the inspectors, which they have got from these men, may show that ample fish passed for spawning out of the River Foyle to the tributaries; but that is not true. There is not a doubt in the world of that. I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary and his officers to check up very carefully on that, as it is like everything else in the sporting line. Someone would ask you to come and shoot over his land and you would immediately ask him what birds are there, what game there is. He says there are plenty. Perhaps it is a man walking out with a dog at the same time every morning and the dog hunts up the same covey of birds and the man thinks there are hundreds, whereas, in fact, there is only one. Perhaps someone has been watching an odd fisherman up there and has magnified that into hundreds. In one case at that meeting, someone said there were thousands. That is utterly fantastic and did not occur, because, if they went up past Lifford and Green Braes or Carrigans, they never went out to the tributaries, they must have gone out on the land. People have an easy method of talking in fantastic figures.
I am talking about those men who hitherto got a livelihood on the River Foyle. There is no doubt in the world that when the Department and the commission take over this thing they will find that what I am saying is true. I have it from men who are experts all their lives, who have been 50 or 60 years at it and who know every fish in the river. They know the number of spawning beds in the rivers last autumn. I am telling the Parliamentary Secretary now that in the River Finn there were not four dozen spawning fish last autumn. That will give an idea of what will happen unless the commission makes money available for numerous spawn — the river will remain lacking a supply of fish. These are things that will confront them, to see that this State gets a return for the money invested. In my opinion, you cannot get millions of spawn now out of the fish in the Rivers Finn, Reeland, Mourne and Strule and you will have to go outside for spawn. You will have to get fry either from some of the rivers in Ireland or from Scotland. These fry, having been born in a river away in another district, even when put into tributaries of the Foyle, when they grow up and go out to sea and are returning again do not return to the Finn, the Reeland, the Mourne and the Strule but will go back to the rivers in which their parents lived. Some of them will go back. I think it is a scientific fact that very many of them will return from the sea to the rivers, even in other parts of Ireland or in Scotland, in which their parents lived. However despite this loss and the fact that a percentage of them did not return to the Donegal and Tyrone rivers, that risk will have to be taken. In that connection I think the Parliamentary Secretary will find himself on favourable ground.
The private owners of the tributary rivers should be contacted immediately and an agreement entered into with them with regard to the restocking of these rivers on a very extensive scale. I do not think that the Parliamentary Secretary and the Department will have any trouble with these owners. I would also like to emphasise the rights and duties of the commission. I think in that connection that it is absolutely unjust and not morally sound for this new commission which is only taking loot out of the estuary of the river to impose rates on the private owners while the commission itself is exempt. Surely it is unjust that the private owners will have to pay rates to maintain the expenses of this commission. I feel it is indefensible and I feel that this House should not pass a measure having this provision in it. I will ask the Parliamentary Secretary to be ready to accept some provision on the Committee Stage which will make that more equitable.
