Vol. 130 No. 6
I move amendment No. 1:—
In page 4, Section 8, to add a new sub-section as follows:—
(2) Before making regulations the Minister shall consult the board and, unless in his opinion it is impracticable to do so, the association or its committee.
This amendment is proposed in compliance with an undertaking which I gave to ensure adequate consultation with the board and where possible with the association or its committee before any regulation is laid before the House.
In agreeing with the amendment I would like to say that we have been met by the Parliamentary Secretary on the amendments which we put forward in a very fair manner indeed and that as far as I am concerned as the sponsor of a number of amendments on the Committee Stage I will certainly raise no objection to any of the amendments the Parliamentary Secretary is putting forward to-day.
I move amendment No. 2:—
In page 5, Section 10, to delete lines 25 and 26 and substitute "Subject to Section 9, the Minister shall grant a licence to an applicant unless——" and to delete "if" in line 27, paragraph (a), and where it first occurs in line 28, paragraph (b).
This amendment is being brought in in substitution for one proposed by Deputy O'Donnell on the Committee Stage. We have worded it somewhat differently from that suggested by the Deputy, but the intention to which he wished to give effect is the same.
It has the same effect actually.
We accept it.
I move amendment No. 3:—
In page 7, Section 15, sub-section (2), paragraph (o), line 14, after "literature" to insert "and cinematograph films and other forms of publicity."
The same applies to that.
I move amendment No. 4:—
In page 13, First Schedule, paragraph 2, line 36, to add to sub-paragraph (1) the following: "Not more than three of the members shall be or have been members of the Civil Service."
In this amendment, the Parliamentary Secretary has more or less accepted in principle the suggestion put forward on Committee. We are anxious about one thing, however, and the Parliamentary Secretary may be able to inform us about it: is it proposed to rotate the chairmanship of the board?
No. I think it is desirable, at least in the early stages, to leave the Parliamentary Secretary free to choose the person whom he thinks best.
Of course, the Parliamentary Secretary will see what is behind our worry. While the Parliamentary Secretary met us very generously on the Committee Stage, we are wondering whether we have not defeated our own purpose. If there are three civil servants and one is chairman they still control the board. That is why we are wondering if there would be any rotation.
I think that Deputy Collins will freely admit that if you impose that obligation you might impose an obligation to choose a person who would be quite unsuitable.
I quite agree.
Unsuitable as a chairman, but not as a member.
I move amendment No. 5:—
In page 15, First Schedule, paragraph 7, to add a new sub-paragraph as follows:—
(8) Every person who, immediately before the commencement of Part III, was employed by the Irish Sea Fisheries Association, Limited, shall, upon such commencement, become a member of the staff of the board on the same conditions as those subject to which he was so employed.
This gives effect to Deputy Larkin's request, as expressed in his amendment, to secure continuity of employment for those already employed by the Sea Fisheries Association. As I indicated to Deputy Larkin, a change in wording has been rendered necessary but the intention to which he wanted to give effect is, I think, carried out.
Were these men permanently employed by the Sea Fisheries Association as agents throughout the country? Had they any superannuation rights? There has been a system—and a very bad one, in my opinion—whereby men acting for a Department were kept on all their lives until the age of 65, perhaps sometimes more; they stayed on, having no other means of livelihood, but they had no security or continuity, and when they had to get out they were left penniless.
These men gave long and loyal service to the Department around the coast, and I would like to think that some permanent protection and security should be given to them at the end of their days. It is a very bad system. I have known over a long period of years various men in these positions who were left penniless at the end of their days. They were decent respectable men, who gave all their time, their entire lives, cycling around the coasts in all kinds of weather, discharging the duties they owed to the Department, and at the end they were thrown out. Something should be done for them, and I am wondering if the Parliamentary. Secretary has anything in mind in relation to making provision for these men at the end of their service to the Department.
I take it this board will function for a fairly long period, because, naturally, we cannot be coming back here every day of the week setting up new boards. These officers, who were employed in a permanent capacity, should have some provision made for them. The new Social Welfare Bill, with which we dealt yesterday, does not alter the age at which State provision is made for men retiring from work. These men will now have to remain on until 70. As I have already said, they have to be out in all kinds of weather, and I do not think it would be reasonable to expect men between 65 and 70 years of age to do that. They have given long and loyal service to the State. Some provision should be made for them. There is no provision in the present Bill, except for their retention, and I think that is very poor consolation. They seem to have been completely neglected. No consideration has been shown for them at all. They are men of the highest character who have given long and loyal service to the State and the various Departments in which they have served. I would like the Parliamentary Secretary to tell us something more about what is being done for them.
The Parliamentary Secretary said something on that matter on Committee Stage.
The amendment does not deal with pension rights. Deputy Larkin had an amendment down but unfortunately it did not come within Standing Orders and it could not be formally moved, but he did speak to it and I also expressed my view. Substantially, Deputy Larkin and myself and Deputy McMenamin are in agreement on this question.
I informed Deputy Larkin that the Sea Fisheries Association had, in fact, employed an actuary to work out the details of a pension scheme. The actuary has not succeeded in completing the job yet but I mention that in order to indicate that the matter has not been lost sight of. I would also like to inform Deputy McMenamin that if a satisfactory scheme is possible as a result of the actuary's work legislation will not be necessary to give effect to it.
I think the time has come when my colleagues and I in the Fine Gael Party should wish the Parliamentary Secretary luck with his new Bill. He is genuinely interested obviously in all that pertains to the fishing industry, and because of that the fishing industry will probably have a better chance of success in the future than it has had in the past.
Taking the main features of the Bill, I am sure the Parliamentary Secretary will agree that we have not shown ourselves in any way anxious to restrict the powers he may need to put this industry on its feet. We are on common ground in our desire to see a more plentiful supply of fish for the consumer and better conditions for the fishermen.
I think the Parliamentary Secretary has allayed the fears of those people who thought that this new board, in operating some deep sea trawlers, would offer a threat to the inshore fishermen. The Parliamentary Secretary has clearly indicated that this is designed as something complementary to inshore fishing and is not in any way designed to trespass upon their way of life. I am glad to see that enshrined in legislation and I think we may give notice now to the inshore fishermen that the purpose of this Bill is to preserve their livelihood for them and that the ultimate preservation of their way of life is now cast irrevocably into their own hands. During the testing period of this Bill they will have to prove that they can, in fact, fish regularly and supply the needs of the markets.
I am glad that this Bill envisages the possibility of an expansion of the subsidiary industries allied to fishing. We are glad to see efforts being made in that direction in Killybegs and we hope that the south and south-west will in due course come to share in the establishment of these industries. I am glad to see a forward move towards the supply of smoked fish, preserved fish and ultimately canned fish.
This legislation is of dual parentage. It is partly the child of the former Minister for Agriculture and partly the child of the present Parliamentary Secretary. The Bill has gone a long way towards meeting the widely divergent views that have been expressed here. Within the framework of the Bill there is scope for co-ordinated development and I trust the Parliamentary Secretary will be able to achieve results. He quite frankly told us of the many difficulties that arise because of the conflict of opinion between the fishermen and the various sections of the fish trade. There is a conflict among the fishermen themselves as to the size of boat and the type of engine and there are many conflicts in relation to the sale and the resale of fish.
There has been a lot of talk in the course of this debate about distribution. I feel we have not in any way tied the Parliamentary Secretary's hands or endeavoured to try to tie his hands in approaching these problems. At one stage of the debate a remark was interjected that it might be well if all Ministers were Parliamentary Secretaries for a time. Deputy Bartley, the Parliamentary Secretary, deserves this compliment from the House—that for the first time in a very long period he listened to the concerted opinion of the House and went as far as he could, within reason, to meet what were obviously non-partisan views put forward in the best interests of the fishing industry.
I think it is only right that it should go on the records of this House in a positive, assertive statement that we in the Opposition, whether we are Fine Gael, Labour or any other section in opposition, are thoroughly appreciative of the spirit in which this Bill was moved in the House and of the manner in which amendments were met. It is a fair lesson to anybody who wants to get what I describe as progressive legislation passed through this House. I sincerely compliment the Parliamentary Secretary. I think a tremendous amount of it is attributable to his personality and to the individual himself.
We say to him, in an earnest go n-éirghe an bóthar leat, that, in any matters related to this measure or any difficulty he may encounter, he can always come to discuss with any of us the difficulties that may arise and that may cause him to have to amend his hand slightly at any stage. If he maintains the standard which characterised the discussions during the Committee and Report Stages of this Bill he will find he will not have any difficulty at any stage in getting co-operation from us to make this legislation as good as we want it to be and to ensure that, under him, the fishing industry and all persons connected with it, the wholesalers, retailers and consumers, will get the best possible deal that we can offer them, thereby ensuring the gradual development of the fishing industry.
I would like to join with my friend and colleague in paying a compliment to the Parliamentary Secretary for the manner in which he has received our criticism and amendments. While I do not think that the Bill is a Magna Carta officially, I think the fishermen should know and be told that we have now placed legislation at their disposal and that it is up to them to take as much advantage of it as possible.
I want to see the Bill, when it becomes an Act, being made use of by the fishermen, the retailers, the wholesalers and, particularly, the consumers of fish. There is no doubt whatever about it we are fast losing our fishing industry and a serious effort must now be made, within the framework of the Bill, to try to bring it back to the position it was in some 30 years ago.
If there is one particular aspect of the fishing industry in which I am interested it is the herring fish trade. I sincerely hope that the new board, when set up, will endeavour to see that prime Donegal herrings are available to every housewife in this country, not as cured herrings but as fresh herrings. I also hope that, in conjunction with the Department of Education, the cooking of fish will be one of the essential subjects in all vocational schools throughout the country. I also hope that the board will take advantage of the amendment in connection with the use of the cinematograph for educational and advertising purposes.
I might, at this stage, suggest to the new board that it is very essential that the catches of fish landed at the various ports in the country should be announced on the radio in the news each night at 10 o'clock or 10.10 p.m. By doing that we will be giving the retail and wholesale trade an opportunity of getting to the ports at which the fish are being landed, and thereby obtaining fresh fish for distribution to the customers.
Get them alive.
Alive, yes. I was surprised the other day to hear, in reply to a question of mine, that there is no demand in the City of Dublin for the old reliable cockle. Immediately I received the reply, I called on three of the best known restaurants in town and I asked was it possible to supply me with cockles. They said they were sorry but that they could not obtain a supply of cockles. I hope the new board will remedy that position. We have some of the finest cockle strands in Ireland in County Donegal. We know what "Mollie Malone" made of the cockle in the City of Dublin. I hope that the new board will resume the good work which she did to popularise the cockle.
Again, our lobster trade has failed. I am convinced that one of the reasons why our lobster trade is failing is because we are permitting the landing of berry lobsters. The Minister introduced a by-law or regulation whereby lobsters under a certain size are not landed, but surely the landing of the berry lobsters and the catching of them is one thing that is denuding our fishing grounds of lobsters? I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will advise the board that that is a matter to which they should pay particular attention at a later date.
It is a strange thing that our fishing industry had two peak periods within the last half-century. Those periods were during the war of 1914-1918 and, again, during the war of 1939-1945. Is it not quite evident that, when our inshore fisheries were thriving, was the time when the trawler had been swept off the seas outside?
I would appeal to the Parliamentary Secretary to consider the recent decision given at the Hague Court. If we can push out our territorial waters and if we can protect them, then we will do great work, in my opinion, for the inshore fishermen.
Hear, hear!
If necessary, our Air Force should be used.
And our Navy, the Norwegian Navy and the Spanish Navy.
It would be a very good thing if our Navy could be used.
And the nine-inch guns on Spike Island.
If our Navy and Air Force were utilised in conjunction with the Department of Fisheries, we could not only protect the three-mile limit, but also the ten-mile limit to which we are entitled if the decision of the Hague Court is to stand. I would appeal to the Parliamentary Secretary to impress on the board to make the necessary representations to the Department of Defence for the assistance which he and the board should get for the protection of our fisheries.
I would also request him to impress on the board the necessity for the proper distribution of our fish. We are endeavouring to provide boats, but if the boats land the catches we must try and deliver the fish to the consumer in the same condition as they have been landed by the fishermen at the pier. It is essential that proper frigidaire and cold storage plants be allocated to the Midland towns. I would impress on the Parliamentary Secretary that as much importance should be paid to the distribution of fish as to the catching of the fish. If we do that, then we shall do a considerable amount of good, not only for the fishermen, but for the population of this country in general.
It is very characteristic of Deputy Seán Collins to be generous and decent in a matter of this kind. I think it is noteworthy that there was no hesitation or reserve in his readiness to pay a generous tribute to the Parliamentary Secretary for promoting this Bill and for the method with which he conducted it through the House. In expressing these sentiments, Deputy Collins was characteristically seconded by Deputy O'Donnell. I remember being told once that as an elderly widow approached the altar to wed her fifth husband an experienced observer was heard to murmur: "This procedure appears to me a tribute more to her optimism than to her wisdom." When I look at the barnacled warrior sitting on the Front Bench of Fianna Fáil and hear him described by Deputy Collins as a non-partisan servant of the fishermen of this country, all I can say to Deputy Collins is: "Think of the mature widow"—because if, in the eyes of Deputy Collins, Deputy Bartley, the Parliamentary Secretary, is a young Lochinvar come out of the West, I can assure him that he is a whiskered old warrior who is concerned, in my honest belief, to do little else than lead the fishermen of our western coast up the alley.
So far, I have carefully abstained from intervening in the discussion on this Bill because I know its history and because it nauseated me to listen to the froth that has been dished up by Deputy Bartley, the Parliamentary Secretary, to a body of men in this country whom I hold in high regard and whom it distresses me grievously to think are going to be deluded and defrauded by a specious performance which, in my view, has honestly misled Deputy Collins and Deputy O'Donnell into believing that promises have been made in this House with even a remote intention to keep something like their shadows, though nothing was further from the mind of the Parliamentary Secretary. I know that Deputy Collins feels that I am a cynical and disillusioned person to speak like this of such noble sentiments as those which have been expressed in this House by the Parliamentary Secretary and his colleagues during the past fortnight. If I am proved wrong, I shall be the first to congratulate Deputy Collins and Deputy O'Donnell on their superior foresight.
I was Minister for Fisheries for three and a half years and from my experience then I feel that Deputy Collins and Deputy O'Donnell, have something which I think is an obsession on the subject of fishing and of fishermen. Great as is the importance which I attach to inshore fishing, sometimes I used to think that these two Deputies had bees in their bonnets on this particular subject. Certainly, when I was Minister for fisheries, they never gave me a moment's rest so long as they felt that something further could be done for that industry. Some of their proposals I thought daft and I said so, but I realise that these proposals were made by men who love the industry and those who work in it and that these two Deputies were prepared to urge any Minister for Fisheries to try everything and anything which would improve that industry.
Nor would it be right for me, either, to conceal the fact that any Minister for Fisheries who sits in the Cabinet with Deputy MacBride can never hope to sit easy. He also, if I may say so, had a bee in his bonnet about fishing. I thought many of his proposals daft. But if they were daft they were the proposals of a man who loved a section of our people, in my judgement, not wisely but too well, and who was always prepared to advocate any extremity of Government action on the ground that if the inshore fishing industry were suffered to die no subsequent exertion on the part of any future Government could conceivably revive it.
I do not give a fiddle-de-dee for fish wholesalers or fish retailers. They are well able to look after themselves. They are as tough and as rough a vested interest as there is in this country. The only powers in their regard which I would want under a Fishery Bill are to have perennially available a black maria with which to remind the fish wholesalers and retailers that they would not be allowed to gut the fishermen and to rob the consumer.
I would remind the Deputy that this is the Fifth Stage of the Bill and that we can deal now only with what is in the Bill. The Deputy has not said a word yet about what is in the Bill.
Certainly. What else am I talking about?
The Deputy must come now to what is in the Bill.
I submit that the provisions of this Bill are not going to have the salubrious results which Deputy O'Donnell and Deputy Collins hope for. I am going to tell the House what they are—for I know that 90 per cent. of the Bill is the Bill that I brought before this House. However, there are a few trimmings. What are they? We are going to have trawlers. We are going to accept responsibility forthwith for the regular and profitable disposal of the fishermen's catches of pelagic fish. I want to tell the House what that means. It is not true that the Fishery Board will provide for the catches of herring and mackerel. One of the reasons why they cannot provide adequately for them is because Deputy Dr. Ryan, when he was Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries, some years ago, made an agreement with Great Britain which permanently prevents him and every subsequent Government here from restricting imports of smoked fish.
Smoked and dried fish.
Is that the 1938 agreement?
I think it is. That is a fact. There is not a single Deputy in Fianna Fáil who would be allowed to know that fact and it is treason to tell them—and the poor innocent creatures, I suppose, did not know and do not believe it. As I say, that is a fact. I bet that it was never mentioned in the course of this debate when we were announcing our intention——
It was.
I bet the Parliamentary Secretary did not get up and tell the House that that was one of the little snags he had to contend with.
No.
What disgusts and revolts me is this base, unscrupulous and contemptible trading on the confidence of 10,000 families scattered along the west coast of our country, who want nothing but a chance to work hard for a very, very exiguous living and who are led up the garden path to believe: "Now at last we have got a chance," only as soon as the political turn which the Fianna Fáil Party want served has been served, to find that they will be thrown into the ash-can. I do not deny that it revolts me. When I brought a Fishery Bill before the House I tried to tell the House that there are limits to what we can do. I remember anxious Deputies saying: "You should take this power and that power; you should take power to use trawlers; you should take power to handle fish." There was no use in putting these powers into my Bill and they could have been put in only to deceive these Deputies but they are all in this Bill.
What I want to warn the House of is this. If my advice were asked I would give the Parliamentary Secretary, if he wanted it, a three-line Bill giving authority to do anything deemed necessary to preserve the home market for the inshore fishermen. I would be quite prepared to give him that Bill if I believed in his bona fides, but I do not. I do not believe in the codology of writing into a Bill provisions about trawlers, herrings and all the rest of it for no purpose except to delude, deceive and betray a body of men who have been too often shamelessly and cynically sold down the drain in the past.
This is a Second Reading speech and the Deputy knows it.
I do not want to change anything in the Bill, but I warn the House that the provision about trawlers in this Fishery Bill, and the declaration of the Parliamentary Secretary's intention to establish a trawler fleet under this Bill, may mean the certain inevitable and imminent destruction of the inshore fishermen. I warn the House that if the powers in this Bill are used to purchase a fleet of trawlers, far from functioning as a complement to the inshore fishery trade, it will have two immediate consequences: (1) the immense loss of public money put into it, and (2) what is infinitely worse, the destruction of the inshore fishing trade, with the immense social problem that is going to create on the kerry coast, on the Connemara coast and on the Donegal coast, and the immense amount of suffering, though the social problem created will not be so intractable, on the North County Dublin coast, the Wexford coast, and along parts of the Wicklow coast.
I know, and I do not want to deny for a moment, that my colleague, Deputy Collins, believes that it is possible to integrate a trawler industry with the activities of the inshore fishermen. He has often argued that with me. He has often said to me: "You are wrong in believing——"
If the Deputy were right, I would be with him.
I know Deputy Collins's view. His view has been: "You are wrong in believing that the trawlers will militate against the fishermen." I know he has often said to me: "If I believed that, I would be the first to banish trawlers from this country for ever." I believe the Parliamentary Secretary from his experience knows that I am right and believes that I am right. I believe that Deputy Collins does not believe that I am right, but sets his judgement against mine, but let the ultimate event prove which is right. My anxiety is that in the process of settling the dispute between Deputy Collins and myself as to what the result will be, the people, for whom everyone in the Department of Fisheries has spent a life work, will be swept away, and once they are gone, nothing we can do will ever bring them back.
I shall tell you who will make money out of this Bill. I shall tell you with whom this Bill is a howling success. Did you notice that as long as this Bill has been before the Dáil there has not been a fishmonger, retail or wholesale, within shouting distance of Leinster House? Did Deputies notice that? When my Fishery Bill was before the House, on the other hand, I declare to God you would break your neck meeting fishmongers in every corner of the House, right from my room all along the corridors. Every Deputy was meeting weeping fishmongers — wholesale and retail—in every corner. Batteries of lawyers were employed and manifestos a mile long were drawn up showing how the poor ragged fish wholesalers were inquiring in James' Street whether there was any room in the South Dublin Union for them. Deputy Dillon had gone berserk and was going to put them into the workhouse. Then, after having suitably impressed everybody, they walked outside into their Chryslers or their Bentleys and drove home. There was not one of them who was not sweeping the attics to find if there was any moth-eaten raiment they could take out of some ancient chest to wear down to Dáil Éireann to tell their neighbours what they were——
The Deputy has got a great deal of latitude. I must ask him now quite definitely to come to what is in the Bill. He has rambled far and wide.
Through streets broad and narrow.
The Chair is convinced that the Deputy has not made three minutes' reference to anything in the Bill. He will have to confine himself now to the terms of the Bill.
I am saying that the contents of this Bill constitute the Magna Carta of the fishmonger, wholesale and retail, and it has been ruthlessly——
It should not take all this time to say that.
Have I not urged——
The Deputy has rambled away from what is in the Bill. I must now ask the Deputy to come to what is in the Bill.
I referred only to what is in the Bill.
The Deputy is endeavouring to make a Second Reading speech.
I do not want to change a line in the Bill.
The Deputy can make a Second Reading speech without wanting to change what is in the Bill. I want him to deal with what is in the Bill.
I am warning this House that what is in this Bill will come to be known as the Magna Carta of fishmongers, within brackets, wholesale and retail, including auctioneers. I do not for a moment wish to suggest that the provisions of this Bill will reduce the price of fish to the consumers. I want to say to the Parliamentary Secretary at once, that if he has any complaint against them on that score, I certainly would be prepared to justify him most emphatically if this Bill were designed to protect the inshore fishermen. There is only one legitimate ground on which we are entitled to ask the consuming public to pay an inflated price for fish, and that is because that price is exclusively designed to preserve the inshore fishermen.
This Bill, in the light of what we have heard from the Parliamentary Secretary of his intention as to how he proposes to use it, means the end of the inshore fishermen. This Bill, in the light of what we have heard from the Parliamentary Secretary of the Government's intention, means dear fish for the consumers of this country, and those who go without fish or pay an enhanced price for it will have the satisfaction of knowing that the excess price they pay is guaranteeing the continuance of Chryslers and Bentleys for the fishmongers of this country, wholesale and retail. I know that Deputy O'Donnell was not misled by prognostications of what was going to be done—"going to be done"—in Killybegs. He knows well that most of the experimental pilot enterprises are already in Killybegs.
I do not blame the Parliamentary Secretary for that—that is legitimate "hooey" to fool the Deputies who sit behind him, to claim that he is going to do what was done 12 months ago. What horrifies me is the thought that while most of the follies his Government perpetrates we can reasonably hope to remedy as soon as we have got rid of this Government, this folly is one which we cannot remedy, if they have time to commit it.
I acquired my interest in this business when I first went to Cloghaneely, in the Donegal Gaeltacht, to learn Irish 30 years ago, and I have tried during 30 years in public life, perhaps all too ineffectively, to be of some service to the fishing community when the opportunity offered. It is to me a day of tragedy that we should embark upon this departure of repeating, in 1952, the folly first perpetrated in 1932, of State-operated trawlers. The last time that experiment was made, it involved no greater damage than the loss of public money. As certainly as we are standing in this House to-day, a second attempt at that operation means that, in the lifetime of many Deputies sitting here, inshore fishing as a way of life becomes part of the archæology of Ireland.
I should be sorry for the Parliamentary Secretary if I thought his name was going to be associated with that tragedy through the zeal of an inexperienced enthusiast. I am sorry to tell the House that there is no man in Dáil Éireann knows better the truth of what I am saying than that man who was born and reared in Clifden, and it appals me that a man with his knowledge should, for a base political end, be party to the projects enshrined in this Bill, which he knows will clear the coast all around Ireland of a very precious element of our society, now practically gone through Connemara and to-morrow to be finally eliminated from the life of Ireland. It is a bad day for something characteristically and uniquely Irish.
I have always been an optimist. I have never believed that any cloud was as black as it looked. This is the blackest I have ever looked at yet, and there is only one conceivable possibility of a silver lining, that is, that the folly which has become so marked a characteristic of the disintegrating Party from which the present Government is drawn will drive them to the final madness of submitting this and the rest of their conduct to the judgment of our people. Nothing stands between the permanent and irrecoverable extinction of the inshore fishing industry and the men who man it but an early general election, and if that does not take place——
I think it will.
——I have to say "hail and farewell" to something that was greatly loved in Ireland, something which posterity will blame us bitterly for destroying, not through folly but through a desire politically to aggrandise a political Party machine, not caring for the infinite cost which the wretched bargain involves.
I want, first of all, to compliment Deputy Collins and Deputy O'Donnell on their approach to this Bill on this stage, and to pay tribute to the manner in which they have contributed towards making it a better Bill during its various stages through the House. I am quite prepared to acknowledge that there is an inherent conflict between deep sea trawling and inshore fishing. If deep sea trawling were unrestricted and uncontrolled it could, to a great extent, threaten the livelihood of the inshore fishermen. But is not the whole purpose of this Bill to integrate the inshore fishing with deep sea trawling, and to ensure that the whole business of reaping the harvest of the sea in the deep, close to tidal waters, and in the outer reaches will, as far as possible, be regulated, so that in seasonal periods, when it is very difficult or impossible for the inshore fishermen to operate the deep sea trawlers will fill the gap, thereby making available for consumers regular supplies of fish?
Now, I think that is fundamental, and, because it is, I think it makes for the success of this Bill. As I see it, the board will stimulate and control inshore fishing and will, at the same time, promote, as far as possible, a degree of deep sea fishing which will help out the inshore fishermen by ensuring that there is a regular supply of fish available for consumers the whole year round—that they will be encouraged to purchase fish—and that retailers can always depend on getting fair and regular supplies.
I want to say that I do not agree at all with Deputy Dillon's approach to this Bill. His outlook is one of complete despair, because he told us that the only hope he had for the future of the fishing industry was that the Fianna Fáil Party might be speedily eliminated, and that there would then be a change of policy. He made that statement knowing that the Front Benches of the inter-Party combination are in complete disagreement with Deputy Dillon, and are in agreement with the Parliamentary Secretary. Therefore, if the policy of the Parliamentary Secretary is wrong, it is a policy that is going to be operated not only by the Fianna Fáil Government, but by the Fine Gael Government, if, ever again, they come into power. Therefore, I think it is a matter for satisfaction that, at the moment, we have operating this Bill, and determined to operate it, a Parliamentary Secretary who is sincere and enthusiastic in regard to the fishing industry, one who has a complete knowledge of it, and one who, I may say, I think, has an affection for those engaged in that particular industry. I think that is very important, because, no matter what is in this Bill or how carefully it has been drafted, and no matter what provision is made in it for the future of the industry, all these provisions could result in failure, unless it is operated efficiently, honestly and sincerely. Efficiency, of course, is perhaps the most urgent consideration, because inefficiency could completely ruin all the high hopes which are centred around this Bill.
I am afraid that Deputy Dillon's approach to this Bill is very similar to his approach to other questions. It is an attempt to create the impression that there is an unbridgeable gulf between the various interests concerned in this industry, just as, in regard to agriculture, he has preached for years that there is an inherent conflict, an unbridgeable gulf, between tillage and live stock, and between wheat growing and barley growing. In the same way, in regard to this Bill, he sought to show that there is an unbridgeable gulf between inshore fishing and deep sea fishing. Now, I think the whole purpose of this Bill is to bridge that gulf, and to ensure that we should go after all the fish that are in the water, horse, foot and artillery, that we are not going to pull our punches or tie our hands in any way, and that our fleets will go out as far as those of any other country to reap the harvest from the sea. At the same time, we are determined to protect, as far as it is possible for us to do so, those who make a living out of fishing around our coasts.
I am in whole-hearted agreement with those Deputies who have suggested that we ought, as far as possible, seek to extend our territorial waters and thereby enlarge still further a means of living for our own people, and exclude to a greater extent the fleets of other nations. When Deputy Dillon suggests that we should leave deep sea trawling severely alone in order to protect the inshore fishermen, he did not advert to the fact that by doing so we are leaving it to the trawler fleets of other nations. If we could have an assurance that other nations would not engage in deep sea fishing, then there might be some point in leaving it alone. If we make up our minds to concentrate on fishing only in our own territorial waters, do we not realise that other nations will set out, with enterprise and efficiency, to fish in the deep waters, thus leaving only a limited area for our inshore fishermen, and as well, perhaps raiding our territorial waters at every available opportunity. Therefore, I think the fact that the hand of Deputy Dillon has been removed from the fishing industry is a good thing. This Bill has been put through the House backed up by the support of all Parties, except one Party, which is a one-man Party.
In the course of his speech, Deputy Dillon, as on previous occasions, divided Deputies into two distinct classes. He has, perhaps, only two distinct classes into which he divides all people engaged in public life in this country. If you are not a barnacled old warrior, you are a daft person. These are the two distinct categories into which Deputy Dillon divided members of the House in regard to this Bill —those who are not branacled old warriors or dishonest and insincere are daft.
"Senile delinquents" is the Deputy's method of description of certain persons.
There are some people in this House and outside the House who will grow up politically to be even juvenile delinquents. I am afraid I will have to accuse Deputy MacBride of being amongst that class.
That is not very relevant to the Bill.
I do not think Deputy MacBride was relevant, but I felt it was necessary to reply. I hope that this Bill, when it becomes law, will be operated efficiently. We have all heard some criticism of the Bill from a certain section of the inshore fishermen, but I do not think these criticisms were fully justified. I think they arose from the natural fear which some people have of competition. But I do not think that there is anything in this Bill that is likely to lead to unfair competition. It is quite apparent that the aim is to organise the whole fishing industry so that not only our own territorial waters but all waters within reach of our boats will be fully exploited.
I was rather pleased to hear Deputy O'Donnell speak enthusiastically of the Donegal herring. I am not one of those who like fish, but there is one exception, that particular delicacy the Arklow herring. I am afraid Deputy O'Donnell has never tasted that particular herring, but, if he did, he would admit that there is one rival to the Donegal herring.
I think the Bill will enable us to increase our catches of fish all round our coast and far from our coast. It will enable us to compete, to a certain extent at any rate, perhaps only to a limited extent, with the trawler fleets of other nations. At any rate, we have a protected market for our fish here and it will be the function of the board to ensure that that market is supplied regularly and that fish is supplied to every part of the country, even to the most inland towns.
So far as Deputy Dillon's remarks in regard to those engaged in the retail and wholesale trade in fish are concerned, it will be the duty of the board to see that there is no profiteering or exploitation either of the fishermen or of the consumers by these middlemen engaged in the trade. The board will have to be active and vigilant. I should like to see the board composed of people who are well-informed in regard to the fishing industry. I should like to see it composed entirely of people who can give their full time to the work of the board. I should like to see it composed of men who will not meet just at irregular intervals and leave everything to the officials. I think it is absolutely essential to have on the board men who will be able to give their whole attention to the work of the board.
If the board or a substantial proportion of the members are not well-meaning, well-intentioned men, if they do not know what is going on or what is being done by the organisation, then they will be a menace to the future success of the whole industry. I want the Parliamentary Secretary to ensure that the members of the board are men of the highest standing, men who know their business and who are prepared to devote their entire time to the work of the board, men who will be earnest and enthusiastic in making the industry a complete success. On that will depend whether the Bill will open up a new era for the fishing industry or lead to disaster, as Deputy Dillon so confidently predicted.
I have no intention of following up the sententious nonsense uttered by the last speaker, but there are one or two points I wish to mention in the hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will take some steps to deal with them. In regard to the lobster fishing industry, I think we have not fully exploited the possibility of securing markets abroad. We have undoubtedly in recent years secured markets in France, largely through the advent of air transport. But I think that that type of trade can be developed to a much greater extent than hitherto. One country which I always considered should be regarded as a substantial potential market for lobsters is Switzerland. Switzerland has little or no regular sources of supply of lobsters, and there is quite a demand for lobsters for the hotel trade there, which is a very large one. I do not know whether the Parliamentary Secretary will consider the possibility of sending somebody there for the purpose of exploring that market. It would be a great fillip to the lobster fishing industry if additional markets could be secured. Belgium also might provide another market for lobsters. The advent of air transport opens up all these new possibilities.
The other matter which I wish to mention, and which was referred to by Deputy O'Donnell and other Deputies, is the question of the extension of our territorial waters. That is a matter which the Parliamentary Secretary will find has been under consideration in the Department of External Affairs for quite a number of years. The recent decision of the International Court of Justice should now make it a reasonably easy matter to secure an extension of our territorial waters. We are not amongst the countries that participate in the International Court of Justice. But that, I think, would not preclude us from bringing an application before the International Court of Justice in regard to the extension of our territorial waters. In any event, the question of our participating in the International Court of Justice is one which might well be considered by the Government. For some years past there was a general feeling both in the Fianna Fáil and the inter-Party Governments that it would be a wise step to take. Possibly it may be worth while considering the two questions together.
As to the matters raised by Deputy Dillon, as he indicated, I often differed from him in relation to the question of deep sea fishing; but while I did differ from his point of view in that regard I feel that there is a good deal of substance in it and I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will throughout the administration of the Bill keep a very tight check on the position of the inshore fishermen. In most cases they are not professional fishermen but part-time fishermen to whom fishing makes the difference between being able to live on small uneconomic holdings and having to emigrate. It is very easy for smallholders who depend on fishing to supplement their income to emigrate and disappear rapidly without being noticed.
I would therefore urge on the Parliamentary Secretary to keep a constant check on their economic position to ensure that any development of a more plentiful supply of fish through deep sea trawling will not deprive them, not of their entire livelihood but of that portion of their livelihood which enables them to remain in Ireland and not emigrate. That is really the problem. While I think deep sea fishing can be carried on within limits without interfering with the inshore fishermen, it is a matter which should be kept under constant review to ensure that they are not casually forced to emigrate.
I regret that Deputy Dillon has done his best to blight and discourage the fine spirit of cooperation with which this Bill was received and amended in accordance with the wishes of those who had a knowledge of the fishing industry from all sides of the House. It is surprising that an educated man like him and a man experienced in some measure would have such a perverted and perverse idea of human nature as to use every opportunity to condemn even the business men with which he himself is associated, and particularly those who set out to revive our national industries and put commodities on our markets second to none in efficiency or standard.
We all have known men engaged in the fishing trade. I know many of them and I know none who have the affuence to which Deputy Dillon refers, and I see them travelling, not in costly Chrysler cars, as he has said, except, perhaps, hired ones, but mostly travelling by public transport, as many of us do.
As far as the fishermen themselves are concerned, we read only too often, unfortunately, of the risks and dangers they run in the pursuance of a livelihood for themselves and their families, and in order to maintain this very important industry for our nation. We see from time to time, also, eight or ten foreign trawlers tied up at berths in some of our bays. We read in recent times that, in the course of a very severe storm, people looking westward from the shores of Galway Bay had thought that Hy Brasil had again appeared, when, in reality, it was 20 or 30 foreign trawlers lighted up, all seeking shelter inside the Aran Islands. When trawlers from many nations can make such a profitable business in the waters around our shores, surely it is a reflection on an island nation like ours if we are not able to turn that to advantage. There is no doubt about it, that our people are willing to take the risk. They are taking it in small boats. Then why should we not provide them with decent boats so that they would not be risking their lives, as they now are, and the welfare of their families in the pursuit of this employment?
I think this Bill will do much to remedy the decline in the fishing trade for many years past. The distribution of fish is one of the very important factors to be considered. There is a market here and if the towns in the Midlands and elsewhere got an opportunity of buying fresh fish, I have no doubt but that there would be a ready market available for this commodity, with advantage to the health of the people and to the resources of our nation. I have only to join with the others who have spoken from all sides of the House in expressing the fervent hope that we are making a new start, and a successful one, on behalf of this important national industry.
My intervention in the debate will be very short indeed. I rise because of the fears expressed by Deputy Dillon that the consuming public would be exploited. I would ask the Minister and the board to keep a close eye on the price which the fishermen get and the price which the consuming public have to pay. If there appears to be any excess I hope steps will be taken to see that the consuming public are protected. When you go into a restaurant and ask for a piece of fish at the moment, you just wonder if you are buying gold when they charge you 4/- or 5/- for a small piece of fish two inches by four inches on a plate. Apart entirely from the restaurant consumers I speak also on behalf of the Dublin families in working-class areas who buy fish when it is at a fair price. One of the things that has killed the fishing industry or given the people no inclination to buy fish is the price of it within the last few years. I rise only to put that point of view, to ask the Minister to see that the public will not be exploited, to watch the difference in the price paid to those who spend the night making the catches and the price which the consumer has to pay, and not to allow it be an excessive difference but merely a fair profit. If he sees any attempt at exploitation, or the withholding of fish at a period when the vast majority of our people want it, I would ask him to step in and make some effort to put the matter right.
My contribution to this debate will be brief. I listened to Deputy Dillon attacking the wholesalers and retailers in the fishing business. I wonder was Deputy Dillon as brave when he met in his room the people whom he described as the roughest and toughest he ever encountered? I doubt it very much. He is a very brave man when he can hide behind the privilege of this House, but I think that is a very cowardly way to act.
Speaking from experience of the retailers and the wholesalers in the fish trade in Dublin, I can say, in all truth, that they are honest and decent people. It is unfair that they should be attacked in this House in the manner in which they were attacked by Deputy Dillon this morning.
I will tell you something about them in a few minutes.
I do not know whether or not the wholesalers and retailers are driving around in Bentleys. I would like to put on record that I am all in favour of the man who gets the fish getting most of the profit and getting well paid. I think that is generally agreed. I am sure the board and the Parliamentary Secretary will see that, if the wholesalers are shocking the people, as Deputy Dillon said they were, they will in future work in the best interests of the industry. My main idea in speaking was to say something in defence of the retailers, particularly in Dublin.
I would like also to congratulate Deputy Collins on his contribution to this debate. We read a lot about him booming his way through discussions, but I must say that in my short time in this House I have never heard him in better form. He was enthusiastic, sincere, knew what he was talking about and said it very well. I do not think Deputy Dillon should suggest that he was in any way daft because he did not agree with his point of view. I think the question about anybody being normal should apply more to Deputy Dillon's side of the House rather than to where Deputy Collins sits.
I agree with Deputy Byrne that the Dublin people would like to get all the fish possible at a cheap rate. I do not frequent many restaurants, and Deputy Byrne may have been including the 10 per cent. charge in the price charged to him for fish. I am well aware that the poorer type of people in Dublin would like to see fish available at a cheap rate, and I ask the Parliamentary Secretary, if at all possible, to direct his attention to that matter.
If whitewashing would make this Bill the success it is intended to be, then there would be no doubt about the future of this industry. Deputy Dillon spoke this morning about the operations of the wholesalers and retailers of fish in this country and in this city. Deputy Byrne made a plea on behalf of the consumers and suggested that the price of fish should be guided by the Parliamentary Secretary. Another Deputy here, whom I understand is a member of the Dublin Corporation, stood up and said that the fish wholesalers and retailers are a very respectable body of men. They may be all that, but I judge people by the way they act. This House will remember an incident a few years ago when Deputy McGilligan and myself brought what we considered to be an outrage to the attention of the House, at short notice, on a Friday morning. It happened like this. An abundance of fish was landed in the city, but what happened? It was dumped into the sea and the poor people of Dublin who were in need of cheap food had to do without it in order to keep the prices up. That was the only explanation that could be given for the action. How do we expect the fishing industry to develop in this country when such incidents are allowed to happen?
Will not the board deal with matters like that?
We considered it to be our duty, on short notice, to draw attention to that scandal which occurred in this city. What is the use of our talking in this House about the inshore fisherman and his future and about the future of the fishermen along the coasts of our country when such a scandal is allowed to take place in this city? I do not mind whether the wholesalers and retailers are going around the country in Bentleys, Rolls-Royces or Tin Lizzies. I would like to put on record an answer to Deputy Gallagher. There is no use in blinkering ourselves in this matter, as we are only codding ourselves. What is the use in talking about the betterment of the inshore fishermen when their industry is being strafed and ruined at the other end? That is what has killed this industry and there is no provision in this Bill which will remedy that. The main discussion on this Bill has been directed towards the welfare of and assistance to the inshore fishermen. There is no use in talking about the inshore fishermen unless you protect them.
No Deputy in this House would stand for the scandal the Deputy has described. I am sure the members of the Dublin Corporation would take such wholesalers and retailers and throw them into the Liffey. Certainly, I would not object to such an action.
This Bill mainly concerns itself with the welfare of the inshore fishermen, but this talk does not mean anything unless the machinery works right down to the bottom—right down to the consumer's table. What is the use in having a shop of the most elaborate kind, costing £100 or £1,000,000, unless the customer comes in to buy the wares on the shelves? How are the customers being treated with regard to fish? They are being treated in the way I have recited here this morning. The people of rural Ireland do not get any distribution of fish whatever. That is the size of the problem with which this Bill is supposed to deal. However, the problem cannot be tackled by an Act of Parliament, and that is my main objection to this Bill. We put blinkers on ourselves when we come into the Dáil and we try to make ourselves believe that business is run in some way other than the way it is actually run. What have we got to do? In the first place, we must get the fishermen and we must provide them with proper equipment. When they do their job, the board has got to do the remainder of the job. Unless the board plays it part, then the whole effort of the fishermen is lost. What machinery is there here? Can anyone visualise that this Bill will efficiently do the job? This is what must be done. Every morning of every day in the year you must have the fish available at the doorsteps of the housewives in this country. This monopoly of respectable men that Deputy Gallagher talks about, when fish is made available by the fishermen and delivered in the City of Dublin, allow the fish to be dumped back into the sea in order that they may keep up the price. That is one sure way of killing anything. Instead of that they could take the fish and sell them at any price; turning over more and more of them; by taking smaller profits they would ultimately get maximum profits thus building up the industry. But that means putting the fish on the counter and selling it at a reasonable price, a price that the people can pay. That is the only way to do it.
Why do you not start a fish shop?
Next year you will not be able to run one.
I was appalled at the incidents that could take place in a community where people might be starving. How do some of Deputy Gallagher's constituents live? It would mean a great deal to the housewife if, seeing that the price of meat is so high, she could have available every morning or any morning she chose, fish at a modest price to feed herself and her children. That fish is available, and could be supplied at a reasonably cheap price.
Is not that the reason for this Bill?
The people are not allowed to get that commodity because of the respectable gentlemen Deputy Gallagher speaks about. They may be all right, but I judge people as I find them.
When I was speaking I emphasised "retailers," and I do not wish to retract anything I said.
I do not know how it is, but I am dealing with statements which will be found on the records of this House and which were not challenged. The Minister admitted and confirmed them. What is the use in talking about developing this industry? If this is right we are only wasting our time.
What do you suggest as a remedy?
Under Standing Orders it is not permissible to make suggestions of that kind.
Will this Bill not do it?
You scrapped a good Bill.
Surely this board will look after it.
There has been a lot of whitewash in this regard. I have no confidence in this measure. I would like to have, but I have no grounds for it. My people are directly concerned with this industry every day of their lives. Unless this matter can be tackled right down, I see no hope of making a success of the efforts proposed.
This Bill is not for Dublin; it is for your own place as well as for everywhere else.
Deputy MacCarthy was telling us about this respectable body of men.
I know them.
They may be a collection of angels for all I know but I am judging them only on what they did and the treatment they meted out to the public. That is the standard on which to judge them.
They are angels with fins, not wings.
I have no confidence that this Bill will do what it purports to do unless the problem is dealt with in all its aspects vigorously and energetically by a man who has the ability to do it. On the Second Reading I suggested—and I still hold to that, and I have no doubt of what I say being justified—that it would be an excellent thing for this House to select the best young man they could find with proved experience and training, and put him at the head of this establishment. It should not be impossible to find a man who had proved himself capable of doing this job, first of collecting the raw material and, secondly, delivering it every morning and making it available to the housewives of this country. Unless that can be done this Bill cannot and will not be a success.
You cannot run a business by an Act of Parliament and you cannot run a business in a file. That is the reason why Government Departments everywhere, because of their encroachment on industry, commerce and business, are restricting trade and limiting the potentiality of any business of which they take control. How are we going to run a business on machinery of this kind, when everything must be recorded on a file? It is really a question of taking quick decisions, given verbally because there is no time for recording notes in these matters. If a man must make records in a file and cannot take a final decision quickly, you cannot run this business which we are suggesting should be the second-best industry in this country. We are only wasting our time and public money discussing the matter. Nobody would be more charmed than I if, from my experience, I could come to the conclusion that that Bill would be a success and put the fishing industry on a sound footing in this country.
Strange to say, I have to admit that Deputy Gallagher is responsible for my intervention in this discussion. If Deputy Gallagher is as innocent as he looks I doubt if he should be in the House speaking on a matter of this kind. However, I want to assure the Parliamentary Secretary that I do not intervene in this discussion for the purpose of criticising the contents of this Bill, but I do intervene for the purpose of expressing the hope that the machinery of this measure will be used for the purpose for which it is intended; I presume that will be to cut out the abuses that have occurred in the past.
I lived in Howth for a number of years. I am sorry I ever left it but circumstances over which I had no control in a particular period forced me to do so. When I lived in Howth I went out on a number of occasions, particularly at the week-end, with Arklow fishermen. After working hard on Thursday and Friday night these men would come into Howth Harbour to find that the wholesalers, to whom Deputy Gallagher has given his blessing in a qualified way, refused to buy the fish because they would not be able to get in the Dublin market the price that they thought they were entitled to. I saw the fish that had been caught by these hard-working men being thrown back into the sea. At the same time many people, particularly in Dublin City, would have been very glad to get the fish.
How long ago is that?
Twenty-five to 30 years ago.
Did Deputy Davin say that that happened at the week-ends?
As far as I can recollect it happened on Friday or Saturday morning. It certainly should not happen on a Friday morning.
The Deputy will agree that I was a very small boy 30 years ago.
I hope the Deputy does not believe that you are as naïve as you are pretending to be.
I give Deputy Gallagher credit for not having been too well acquainted with the wholesalers of that particular day. I sincerely hope and believe that the Parliamentary Secretary, who has knowledge and experience of this business, will ensure that such a thing will never happen again. I represent a constituency in which, as in other Midland constituencies, the people are not a fish eating community for the reason that they cannot get fish because of the lack of distribution. It will not take very much to encourage these people to eat more fish but we will have to make it possible for them to get the fish. The provision of a better system of distribution is the big problem confronting the Parliamentary Secretary. I advise him to get into close touch with the transport company to see that a better service, whether by road or rail, will be provided, especially on Friday when fish is available in large quantities in certain ports, for the distribution of that fish to towns, villages and rural areas. If that is done, this Bill will be a success.
From my limited knowledge of the Parliamentary Secretary, I have every confidence and hope that he will use the machinery of this Bill to cut out the disgraceful abuses that have occurred in the past, at a period when Deputy Colm Gallagher was only a very small boy.
I am opposing this Bill because I can see that when it goes into operation it will put out of business the inshore fishermen in the interests of combined groups who know nothing about fishing but who will be in a position to finance activities.
The only good points in this Bill are points which were contained in Deputy Dillon's Bill. The defective provisions appear to be the innovations in this new Bill.
I am particularly anxious about the inshore fishermen. I know that right along the coast from Balbriggan to Bray they are opposed to this Bill because they realise the day it becomes law they may dock their boats.
The trend of the contributions from Fianna Fáil Deputies on a previous stage of the Bill was that the inshore fishermen fell down on the job, that they did not deserve any encouragement and that they should be punished now by the establishment of trawling combines which will have the effect of putting them out of business. The inshore fishermen need not think that they can start out from harbour side by side with a trawler and market their fish on return in competition with the trawlers. They certainly cannot. It is either one thing or the other. The inshore fishermen should be given a chance, by improved equipment and better facilities, particularly better marketing facilities and assured prices, of supplying the market. We should look after the men who have always been engaged in industry and give them a chance of supplying the needs of the country.
Reference was made to the possibility of developing an export trade. The trawling companies could concentrate on that aspect of our economy. It should be possible for them to compete with the fishermen of other nations. They should not be given the power that is given in this Bill to put the inshore fishermen out of business.
We know that the inshore fishermen never got a proper chance of supplying the country's requirements of fish. They had not the equipment. Anything that was done for the inshore fishermen was done before 1930. There was nothing done for them in the 1930's or 1940's.
It is a good thing that it is acknowledged now that something should be done for them. This Bill proposes to do something for them, but it is a case of cutting their throats and giving them a bandage. The very minute you provide them with extra facilities and equipment you put them into competition with large combines who have never been engaged in fishing but who can put up the finances which will enable them to put the inshore fishermen out of business.
There is an opportunity of expanding the fishing industry. People in the Midlands can get only fresh water fish.
If there were proper distribution that need not be the case.
That is the point I want to make, if I am allowed. There is an opportunity of allowing the inshore fishermen to expand their activities. We should give them the chance of supplying the full needs of the country before we decide to put them into competition with vested rings. This Bill will have the effect of establishing vested rings which, naturally enough, if they are allowed to go into opposition with the inshore fishermen, will win the battle and will beat the inshore fishermen off the seas. Deputy McMenamin referred to the extraordinary fact that fresh fish was dumped in the sea while there were thousands of poor people in the city who would have been glad to get it. I hope that some arrangement will be made through the board. I think in fact that the board is the only real step in the Bill towards the organisation of the fishing industry. I hope that it will ensure that when good fish are landed they will be properly marketed and that if there is at any time a glut on the market the fish will be diverted into some channel——
Cold storage.
If cold storage were introduced it would ensure the availability of fish at later stages. Also, arrangements could be made to ensure fish reaching the poorer classes in this city who at present must regard fish as a delicacy and a luxury instead of a staple food as they should regard it, considering that this is an island.
I regret that I must oppose the Bill very strongly because I know that hundreds of inshore fishermen right along the coast of County Dublin from Balbriggan to Bray will be put out of business before they get started. These men are trying to supply the Dublin market and, indeed, their task is a very difficult one in the matter of prices. They always seem to be exploited. The fish is taken from them before they know what will be paid. The only thing they know about the price of fish is the docket they get, and there is a very big difference between that price and the price at which they see fish retailed. They are working for some kind of vested group who derive all the profit from the fishing industry as it stands at the present time. I hope that the new board will be vigilant and will put an end to the activities of vested interests which are trying to create an artificial price level which bears no relationship to the price received by the persons who land the fish. If they do that I believe that at least they will be doing some good. Even at this late stage I appeal to the Parliamentary Secretary to give the inshore men a chance before putting them out of business.
Representing as I do a constituency the nearest point of which is some 50 miles from the sea, I am, if I may use that expression, somewhat at sea on this matter, but I am concerned about the complete lack of fish in that constituency. A short while ago we were dealing with the Tourist Traffic Bill, and it is certainly a reflection on the country if a tourist who draws up at an hotel or restaurant in any part of our little island discovers that fish is unavailable. If this board by its deliberations ensures that it will be available, if only on Fridays, in the villages and towns of our inland counties it will be doing a very good service. I intervented only to make that observation.
We are all anxious to see the Bill succeeding, but after my long experience in this House of new Bills for the improvement of the fisherman's lot I find that even with larger boats unless we can make fishing attractive we are not going to succeed. I see in the Bill that we are to have very large boats and that is a good thing, but it must be realised that in Arklow six boats are idle at the present time for want of crews. The reason is that fishing is not an attractive occupation. When we see that in Wicklow and Arklow fish is purchased at less than 10/- a hundred—that would be 120, ten dozen—and sold in the restaurant here in the same week for 6d. each or more and sold to the poor people of Dublin for 3/- or 3/6 a dozen we must ask: "Who receives the profits?" Not the fishermen. They risk their lives in all weathers and have to go to the expense of their boats and if there is a surplus of fish they have to depend on the Dublin market. My advice to the Parliamentary Secretary would be not to confine all the fish to the Dublin market. In areas near seaport towns, even within a radius of 12 to 15 miles, it is impossible to get fish and even in the seaport where the fish is landed no shop, even a licensed shop, can purchase that fish until it is sent back the following morning from Dublin. The fish is sent from Wicklow or Arklow to Dublin where all the expense of the market is incurred and it is returned the following morning. Instead of trying to develop an export market I believe that we should try to develop our own home market in Ireland and try to develop a taste in fish.
Hear, hear, Jack.
I believe that you would have that market if you had proper distribution. When you have a surplus of herrings or other fish they are brought ten or 15 miles in a horse and cart for the people coming out of Mass on Sundays; by then the fish is two or three days old, but it is sold for 3/6 or 4/- a dozen. Then, of course, the countrymen complain about the cost of fish, but the maximum the fishermen receive is 10/- a hundred. Unless we have easier distribution to the rural areas and a constant supply we cannot have a market for fish. Many of us who live near fishing towns recognise that on fair days when the countrymen come in they buy hundreds of herrings which are then cured in the farmer's houses.
The captain of the boat is liable for payments to the Fishery Board while the crew have no responsibility and no worry except what they are to receive each week. If there is a good season there is no trouble in securing a crew, but in a bad time the captain has to take responsibility for paying the expenses with a shortage of crew. Unless we can improve distribution no Act of Parliament will have the desired effect.
You are to have larger boats than we have in Arklow, but if you have boats and have not a crew there is no use in talking about the development of the fishing industry. If you cannot eliminate some of the expense of distribution, the transport of the fish from where it is landed to the Dublin market, and back again to Cork, Waterford or some other centre, you will not make a success of the fishing industry no matter how many of us desire to see it improved. I am not objecting to the wholesaler getting his share, but when the captain has to pay so much for the boat and gear, auctioneers' commission and the crew's pay, and only 3/- a stone is allowed to him, there is very little encouragement for him to continue fishing.
We are all anxious to develop the fishing industry and to assist the fishermen in every way we can in order to achieve that object. Unless we make the industry attractive and give those engaged in it the same rights and the same security as are enjoyed by those engaged eight hours a day in other industries we shall not make a success of it.
I sincerely hope the Parliamentary Secretary will make a success of it. He will have to do everything in his power to eliminate the waste and the delay that occur at the present time in distributing the fish to the inland towns and other local centres. If he succeeds in doing that he will go a long way towards putting the industry on its feet. I hope the larger boats will prove advantageous.
I am glad, too, that the Parliamentary Secretary has agreed to having a couple of practical men on the committee. The board will probably meet three or four times in the year. Now we are all fully aware of the fact that civil servants are invariably careful not to spend money and, therefore, I think it is a good thing to have some practical men on the committee who can give the civil servant members of it the benefit of their practical experience and knowledge. Civil servants will never take the risks that ordinary business men must take.
We welcome the Bill. We wish it every success. I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will now get down to the task of developing a taste for fish on the part of the Irish people. If the industry is put on a remunerative basis it will provide some attraction for the young men who are now going across the water to join the "blue funnel" boats where the work is less arduous than it is here and where the prospects of adequate remuneration for their labours are greater. The time has come when we must induce the young men to remain at home by giving them better security of tenure, better wages and better conditions of working. We must aim at achieving a position where there will be a guaranteed wage the whole season through instead of having the middleman reap all the profits at the expense of the hardships the fishermen have to endure.
I want, first of all, to express my appreciation of the spirit which has animated the discussion on this measure. I think Deputy S. Collins gave adequate expression to that spirit in his remarks this morning on the final stages of the Bill. I endorse everything he said in regard to the utilisation of the larger boats as supplementary to the smaller boats in the inshore fishing fleet in order to obviate as far as possible the necessity of having to buy fresh fish outside the country.
I know that the inshore fishermen along some parts of the coast are apprehensive, particularly on the east coast and in County Dublin, as to how the powers under this Bill will be utilised. In so far as any assurance of mine is of any value—and only one Deputy cast any doubt on the value that may be placed on my assurance— may I say that the primary intention of this Bill is to supply the public with fish, build up the industry and give better employment to those already engaged in it, plus the possibility of increased employment in the future? it is for that reason that this measure has been offered to the Dáil. I cannot do any more than offer my assurance on that matter.
Deputy O'Donnell referred to the desirability of finding a means of marketing Donegal herrings. He knows more about the difficulties in connection with that matter than I do. Speaking on behalf of the board, which has not yet come into existence, may I say that it will be the function of that body to do everything it can to ensure that a profitable market will be found?
Now, the reason why I did not bring in an amendment to Section 9 (7) in relation to the finding of a speedy method of ascertaining the legal representative where a licensee dies is because the formulation of such an amendment defeated the best efforts of the parliamentary draftsman. It would be a very dangerous step to take, as the Deputy realises, if a board such as this one were to take upon it a function which is essentially and fundamentally a judicial one in deciding who is the legal personal representative in any particular case. If a licensee, owning a boat worth £3,000, is a prudent man he will take the precaution of making a will and naming an executor in it. In the case of intestacy, then the ordinary process of administration will have to be gone through.
I appreciate the difficulty in the matter but the boat will be laid up in the interim period.
That is the unfortunate consequence of any intestacy and I would not undertake to presume to decide the ownership of a boat on the death of a licensee because that would be tantamount to my exercising a judicial function. I think it would be unwise and undesirable for the Minister for Agriculture, who is the licensing authority, to issue a new licence in such a case. The Deputy knows that if some authorised person got hold of that document great difficulties would be created in relation to the ownership of the boat.
If it was limited to a short period, say three months, pending the raising of representations that might meet the case.
I have already informed the Deputy that the efforts to find a formula to cover such a case have not been successful. I was very anxious to meet him on the point.
I appreciate that.
Deputy Dillon took me to task for taking responsibility for herrings. In his Bill he excluded herrings as a sea fish.
I know why he did that. I know that in the experience of the Sea Fisheries Association the difficulty of marketing fish has been very great, but, great and all as that difficulty is, we have decided that we ought not to go to the limit of putting in the Bill a definition which, in fact, declares that a herring is not a sea fish. We are accepting responsibility for our all-inclusive definition of "sea fish." It is no excuse or alibi for Deputy Dillon to say he did not define a herring as a sea fish to get out of his responsibility to seek a market for them. In any event, we are not baulking at the difficulty. In comparison with that, I want to point out to the Dáil that we are not presuming to do what Deputy Dillon presumed to do with fish in general. He was placing responsibility on the board to take all fish from all fishermen and to market the whole lot, excluding mackerel and herring. How any board could hope to do that I do not know. It would have put the whole market in chaos.
Deputy Dillon went a great deal further than I went in the matter of restrictions. I have been pilloried for the restrictions contained in this measure but Deputy Dillon, in his 1950 measure, would not allow anybody to carry on the business of fishing in the sea except he did it for sport and possibly for scientific purposes or if he could demonstrate to a court of justice that he was not ordinarily resident in the State. It is an extraordinary measure that provides that if a man came ashore with a hank of pollock he could be brought into court and made prove he caught the fish for sport or that he was not ordinarily resident here. Having brought in a measure of that sort, Deputy Dillon delivered himself of a tirade against this measure which has been admitted by everybody except by Deputy Dillon himself, to be a measure which, in all circumstances, is a very reasonable attempt to meet this very complex problem.
The test of Deputy Dillon's views on the measure is that he did not come in to vote against the things which he said are going to destroy the inshore fishing industry. If I felt as strongly as he pretended to feel, I would certainly challenge the sections to which he objected. I think he cannot get away with that.
No Deputy can be always in the House.
If I had felt as strongly as Deputy Dillon declared himself as feeling on a proposal in this measure which he said meant the entire destruction of the inshore fishing industry, no matter what other duties I had to perform I would have made it my business to protest.
The Minister for Finance was absent on the Vote on Account.
I am dealing with the statement made by Deputy Dillon that I am, in this measure, going to destroy the inshore fishing industry. If he thinks that statement is true, why did he not come in to object by challenging the sections of this Bill which are designed to produce that result?
Does the Parliamentary Secretary intend to make any reference to the 1938 Agreement?
Could the Parliamentary Secretary tell us whether the terms of it have been amended or changed?
When that matter comes up for review, the Fishery Department will make the very strongest representation to the Government to ensure that, in any such review, the interests of the fishing industry will be protected.
We are satisfied that the Parliamentary Secretary is fully aware of the implications.
There are certain clauses in the agreement which militate very much against the efforts to put the industry on its feet. Deputy Dillon pointed out that no fishmongers were to be seen around since this Bill was introduced and that, in fact, they were quite well pleased and satisfied that their interests would be protected to the detriment of other interests such as inshore fishermen. I want to tell the Dáil that every interest that wanted to see me since I was appointed Parliamentary Secretary was quite welcome. I have seen a number of bodies and interests. I have denied a hearing to no individual interest which wanted to put a point of view before me. I did not commit myself to the views of any delegation who came to me. In any event, I have gone so far as is humanly possible to meet the point of view of every interest, and this Bill is the result of those efforts.
The Bill's only justification, if Deputy Dillon's estimation were true, would be a reduction in price of fish. I do not say to the Dáil that the Bill is going to reduce the price of fish. The fishermen are looking for increased prices for fish. They say that the costs of the industry have gone up in various directions. I know they have.
Other speakers have tried to come round this problem and referred to the difference between the price which the fishermen receive and that paid by the consumer, and that profiteering is going on. On the committee of the association which is being set up there is representation, as Deputies know, for wholesalers, retailers and other interests on the distributive side of the industry and half the representation is for fishermen. I take it that body will be a very useful instrument in ironing out whatever difficulties there may be in the solution of this problem.
Can the Parliamentary Secretary say anything about the danger of a compromise by the fishermen for the purpose of getting an increased price which would reflect itself in an increased price to the wholesaler?
In other words, that a ring might be formed?
The one problem that seems to worry some people is that there will not be control over the wholesaler in the price of fish and that there will not be some authority to investigate the margin of profits.
That is a function of the Department of Industry and Commerce. I think the question of fish prices is under consideration by the Prices Body at the present moment.
That is what is worrying Deputy Gallagher.
If there is any danger of a ring being set up by a combination of wholesalers, retailers and fishermen, a thing which I think will be very difficult of accomplishment, I have no doubt that the board will take whatever steps it can to break it. It is possible to have a ring that might not have such deleterious effects.
I take it that the first duty of the board and of myself is our duty to the consumers and the public. Quite frankly, we put the fishermen second to them. Deputy Dillon stated that 90 per cent. of this Bill was his own. Therefore, I am only to deal with 10 per cent. and the 10 per cent. of it, I take it, covers his remarks about trawlers.
It will surprise the Dáil probably to hear from me that we are not giving many new powers to the Fishery Authority under this Bill. Practically all the powers contained in this Bill are already in the Sea Fisheries Association. We are taking the power to license boats over 35 feet. If it had not been for Deputy Dillon's 1950 Bill, which sought to put people who were already in the fishing business out of it without a penny compensation, probably this Bill would not have been necessary at all. It was necessary to declare the policy with regard to the fishing industry. That is what this Bill does and it gives some extra power which the Sea Fisheries Association did not have-the main one being licensing.
Deputy Dillon claimed that the Bill, to the extent of 90 per cent., is his measure. Taking him at his word, I have to deal, therefore, with only the other 10 per cent. The other 10 per cent. deals with the trawlers. Under the powers which the Sea Fisheries Association had, they had already decided they would operate deep sea trawlers themselves and they took that decision while Deputy Dillon was a Minister. In spite of all Deputy Dillon's talk this morning, I take it that, in fact, this Bill has received, in effect, his approval.
Where does the question of no compensation come in?
The 1950 Bill presumed to put the Dublin Steam Trawling Company, and others like them, out of the fishing business—and there was no mention of compensation in the measure.
Fianna Fáil took over a bankrupt trawling company.
It did not. It is still the property of the Dublin Trawling Company.
Is there any danger that the Sea Fisheries Association will carry out all their own building and repair work somewhere in the neighbourhood of Dublin, to the detriment of private boat builders?
They have four boat yards at present. They will continue to operate these boat yards and will not interfere with the private boat builders.
Will they be likely to continue to give some of the private boat builders some of their custom?
I think they will be likely to go where they will get the best value.
What about the Dublin Steam Trawling Company?
We are not interfering with the Dublin Steam Trawling Company. They have been in existence for a very long time. They are not being put out of business by any provision contained in this measure. If they want to go out of business, it is their affair.
Deputy Cogan impressed on me the necessity for ensuring that the members of the board will devote their entire attention to this industry. I have had to limit my ability to give effect to Deputy Cogan's intention in that matter, as I was compelled by Deputy S. Collins to limit the number of civil servants to three. However, I will do the best I can to ensure that the board will give all the attention to the industry which the industry requires.
Will the Parliamentary Secretary agree that we have not in any way tied his hands in the matter of getting good men for the industry and of paying them adequate remuneration?
Deputy MacBride mentioned a foreign market for lobsters. The French Government recently decided to drop the liberalisation policy which was introduced under the aegis of O.E.E.C. One of the commodities that have suffered by the dropping of the liberalisation policy has been lobsters, and our lobster trade has suffered as a result. We are doing our best to ensure that the French market will be available by the time the lobster season opens.
The board might consider the possibility of canning lobsters.
I do not think canned lobsters will command the same market in France as live lobsters.
For home distribution?
I think practically every European country would be beaten hands down in that respect by the South Africans. The only benefit the French market is to our lobster men is as a market for live lobsters.
That affects my constituency very pointedly.
Yes, and the whole of the west coast. Deputy Collins, Deputy O'Donnell, Deputy Larkin, Deputy Dunne and other Deputies mentioned the decision of the Hague Court on the Norwegian claim to special recognition of the peculiar configuration of their coast and to an extension of the limit of their territorial waters. So far as I know, up to a week ago the Department of External Affairs had not received the official text of the Hague Court's decision. The authorities here are awaiting the receipt of the official text in order to examine it. It is thought that the Hague Court decision is peculiar to the Norwegian position. If that is so, then the decision would not have general application. However, the possibility of protecting our bays will not be lost sight of if it is possible to take any advantage of this decision by having it applied here.
Deputy MacBride spoke of the inshore fisherman and referred to him as a part-time man who is a fisherman-farmer. I think that no Deputy made any attempt to analyse what is an inshore fisherman, though there has been a great deal of talk about him. Is the Dáil prepared to accept Deputy MacBride's definition that he is a part-time man and a fisherman-farmer-or, in fact, has all the opposition to this Bill been made in the interests of a man who is not a part-time man and who is not a farmer of any sort? In fact, has all the opposition been made on the part of a man who is described as an inshore fisherman but who is a whole-time fisherman who knows nothing about land?
I think that Deputy O'Donnell, as a Donegal man, is aware that there is a very serious conflict of opinion between sections of the inshore fishermen. I came across it in one of my recent visits to Donegal. Take, for instance, the small man, the yawl man, who is a fisherman-farmer. One of these men pointed to a 50-foot boat which was supplied by the Sea Fisheries Association and asked me what I was going to do with a fellow such as the owner of that boat. I asked him what he wanted me to do, and he replied: "You have equipped him and given him a boat of a type which I can never hope to own. I used to set my long lines where you see him scraping up the bottom."
Surely the remedy is to give the yawl man a similar boat?
If he can take it.
Suppose he wants to be a fisherman-farmer of the type described by Deputy MacBride?
Then he becomes a gentleman-fisherman, as far as I can see, if that is the type he is.
Take, for instance, a man with a small-holding who did a bit of salmon fishing in the salmon season, a bit of lobster fishing in the lobster season, a bit of herring fishing, spin fishing and long-line fishing.
We want to retain that particular type and give him a better boat.
He does not want a larger boat. He is satisfied with a 25-foot or a 30-foot boat with an engine. He is not asking for one of our 45-foot or 50-foot boats. Will you take the fishing from him that he always did?
The sea nets.
It is the location of the fishing that is the point here and not the particular net employed.
It will be for the board to try and find the happy medium.
As a matter of fact, we are endeavouring to solve that by the conditions attached to the licence.
The Parliamentary Secretary asked who are concerned. Our main concern, initially, must be the man who is a whole-time fisherman to ensure that his avocation remains and, at the same time, through improving equipment and so forth to preserve the farmer type of fisherman. That has been our approach, from the start, to this Bill.
The board will take every facet of the problem from the currach man to the owner of the highest powered boat and try — to use Deputy Collins's words-to produce an integrated whole that will not impinge too severely on any particular section. The whole effort will be directed towards supplying the market at home in the first instance, which will, of course, incidentally give employment and provide the livelihood that we all want to see given.
Several Deputies mentioned the question of inland marketing. Of course that is going to be the first concern of the board. It is very intimately bound up with the general effort to improve the industry and to increase employment in it, but there is no use landing fish if you cannot land it in variety and in a fairly continuous supply and, having done that, if you cannot distribute it to the best possible advantage. I mentioned in my opening remarks on Second Stage that it was intended to use ancillary industries, such as the production of fish meal, in an effort to rationalise this question of marketing and to cut out, to the largest extent possible, the unnecessary transportation of fish. Deputy Everett referred to it a moment ago and I think it has been taking place in other parts of the country besides Wicklow. I think we can use refrigeration to good effect here because we do not have to handle the very large quantities of fish that are handled in England, but I do not want to be taken as promising that we can use refrigeration as a solution for gluts of herrings. You can refrigerate herrings and defreeze them but you cannot possibly hope to find a solution for the herring problem through refrigeration.
The Parliamentary Secretary might possibly direct the attention of the board to distribution in creamery areas and to the possibility of using creamery stops for distribution.
The Deputy means as distributing agencies? That will be considered, but before you can do that is it not obvious that, if you are to rationalise the transportation of fish, it will be necessary to have handling stations around the coast in which you will fillet your fish, refrigerate or defreeze it, whatever the process may be? Then you will be in the position, because of not having to dump fish on the markets, that you will be able to accept firm orders for supplies to inland towns.
I was thinking of fish landed in areas such as Schull or Castletownbere and which would be available for distribution in any part of that area.
For the immediate future, this question of refrigeration does not arise because we have a gap to fill between our present home landings and the national demand. We can increase the output of fish for ready sale up to the amount required to supply the national demand. After that, in regard to whatever potential market may be developed, refrigeration would be of great use in achieving that further development.
Deputy Byrne asked whether any steps could be taken to reduce the gap between the price received by the fishermen and that paid by the consumer. Again I can only repeat that the new committee should be of great use as a means of securing a proper balance between what the fisherman gets and what the consumer pays. I understand that if you fillet fish you reduce the quantity by 50 per cent. and that would affect the price very considerably. I understand that is the experience of the trade.
That is a fair exaggeration.
We shall let the committee hammer out the rights and wrongs of it.
You know fish, so does Deputy O'Donnell and so do I, and to us a statement of that kind sounds a bit Irish.
Deputy Gallagher mentioned the same thing, and all I can do is to repeat the assurance I have already given in that regard. Deputy McMenamin blamed the merchants for dumping fish. He mentioned a specific dumping which took place a few years ago. The Department has no knowledge of any such dumping. It may happen, of course, that, if fish arrives on the market in a bad state or in an unsaleable condition, it would have to be dumped. As I understood Deputy McMenamin, he was referring to fish that was not unsaleable.
The Parliamentary Secretary will find out all about that on the records of the House. Deputy McMenamin called attention to the matter on special short notice. It was not unsaleable.
There would have to be a condemnation order before it could be dumped.
The board and the committee will keep a close eye on such matters in future. You will have two bodies co-operating in watching matters of that sort in future. The board, in particular, will have a special interest in it. Deputy Davin gave us particulars of an experience of his in going out with Wicklow and Howth men fishing. Replying to an interruption from me, he indicated that it was week-end fishing he was referring to. The gist of his complaint was that a market could not be found for the fish and that the wholesalers refused to take it. There is always a difficulty in marketing fish landed at the weekend. Again, refrigeration is one of the solutions to that problem. He wants a better distribution of fish and a regular supply to towns and villages. That, again, will be one of the most important concerns of the new board.
Would the Parliamentary Secretary advise the board or the committee to sit down seriously with the representatives of Córas Iompair Eireann to try to hammer out a better system of distribution?
Of course you must get, first of all, a sufficient supply of fish. We are importing fish at the present time. Every week there are licences granted for the import of fresh fish. I take it that the problem of transportation of fish will not arise until we have sufficient landings of fish from home sources to meet the home market.
While fresh fish is being imported, barrels of prime cured herrings are lying on the piers in Donegal.
That, again, involves the question of public taste. If a man will not buy fresh or salt herring, we cannot compel him to do so. If he wants prime fish and cannot get it, he will eat canned fish or eggs. There is very little we can do in that matter, but I personally undertake now to request the board to explore the possibility of selling more cured herrings in our towns. It is possible that there may be a much larger outlet in our towns for herrings and that some people, either the fishery authority or whatever channel of commerce the fish come through, were blameworthy in not having done more to explore the home market. We will do our best to see if we can get more of our homecured herrings sold at home.
Deputy Rooney said that the only good points in the Bill were taken from Deputy Dillon's Bill and that, when this Bill is passed, the inshore men may tie up their boats, that nothing was done for the fishermen since 1930. The Sea Fisheries Association was set up in 1931, so that when Deputy Rooney says that nothing was done for them-I take it he means in County Dublin-since 1930, he makes the charge against the Sea Fisheries Association that it did nothing for the fishermen in County Dublin.
This Bill proposes to abolish it.
The fact is that almost every motor boat on the east coast was supplied by the Sea Fisheries Association and the east coast got very special consideration from that body. Even the boats now absolutely owned by the fishermen were originally supplied by the Sea Fisheries Association. His charge against the Sea Fisheries Association is completely groundless. When the Sea Fisheries Association has done so much for the east coast, and in particular for County Dublin, and we are now under this Bill taking over all the staff of that body who have done so well for the County Dublin Fishermen, where is the ground for Deputy Rooney's fear that these fishermen are now, with one sweep, to be put out of business by practically the same organisation as built them up? His case has not got the slightest degree of plausibility. Except for Deputy Dillon and Deputy Rooney, there was no introduction of political partisanship into the discussion, but when they mention the year 1930 they are quite plainly pointing out that nothing was done for fishermen by Fianna Fáil and that, as I have shown, is not true.
Deputy O'Sullivan deplored the lack of fish in inland areas, and all I can say is that the efforts of the board will be directed to finding a solution of the problem along the lines I have indicated. Deputy Everett mentioned that point also, and he spoke of the difference between the price to the consumer and the amount paid to the fisherman, a point which was mentioned by several other Deputies. Deputy Everett said that the fishing industry should be made more attractive and pointed out that six boats in Arklow cannot get crews. It is possible that better employment may have been available to the people in Arklow, and that the fishing industry is not now as attractive as it was. The meaning I take out of his words is that the type of boat in use for so long is now losing favour in Arklow, and, unless bigger boats and boats better appointed in the way of sleeping accommodation, cooking arrangements, freedom of movement and facilities for handling catches are provided, they will not continue in the industry. It is not hoped in a reasonable time to be able to supply all the fishermen with the improved type of boat. All that is proposed to be done by the board as an immediate objective is so to improve the landings of fish as to make the country self-sufficient, and, by creating a taste by supplying the fish, to increase the demand, so that the use of bigger and more boats will be justified.
The Parliamentary Secretary will not lose sight of the problem of trying to reduce the amount of deposit necessary by a fisherman for the better type of boat?
I am glad the Deputy mentioned that point. It is a point on which I can conclude. That is one of the biggest problems we have at the moment-the matter of getting the airgead síos, the deposit, when a man applies. Some of the best fishermen are unable to put down £400, £500 or £600 as a deposit, and the new board will be asked by me to tackle the problem as soon as it comes into existence.
Tá me thar a bheith buíoch don na Teachtai a labhair ar an mBille seo. Tá mé lán cinnte go bfuigheadh mé cunamh agus cabhair agus go bfuigheadh an Bórd freisin gach cunamh is feidir leis an Dáil a thabhairt dóibh le rath a chur ar thionnscal na h-iascaireachta.
