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Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 24 Feb 1954

Vol. 144 No. 7

Committee on Finance. - Salmon Conservancy Fund Bill, 1953 —Financial Resolution.

I move:—

1. That levies may be imposed at such rates as may be fixed by the Minister for Agriculture, after consultation with the Minister for Finance, under statutory authority, on salmon for export and on salmon rod licences for the purpose of establishing a Salmon Conservancy Fund in aid of boards of conservators.

2. That provision shall be made by statute for the collection and enforcement of payment of such levies.

If the Parliamentary Secretary does not consider it necessary for him to say anything—I realise that he covered it fairly fully in his speech on the Second Reading—I want to say a few words on this. Frankly, when I saw it first I was half tempted to oppose it or even to vote against it, concerned and all as I am to see the fullest possible provision made in respect of what I might call our inland fishing industry. The Parliamentary Secretary knows quite well that the additional finance, apart from the question of how he is to obtain it, he is going to get from the implementation of this motion is not worth talking about in so far as it will help to improve the position of the various boards of conservators in the country. In practice, it is not going to help in relation to either the protection or restocking of our rivers and lakes. It is merely tinkering with a very important industry, an industry which, notwithstanding the way in which it has been grossly neglected over the years, apart altogether from the amount of money that is earned from it by tourists who come here as anglers, apart from the fact that they are the best type of tourists —because, generally, they spend more money than the average tourist and they certainly give more employment —contributes over £1,000,000 to the national income by way of exports of salmon.

I do not want to be taken as criticising the Department of Fisheries in relation to what they are trying to do for our inland fisheries. I should like again, in passing—because I can only say it in passing—to pay a tribute to the Department for what it is doing through the Fisheries Trust in relation to trout fishing in this country. I think they are doing excellent work and I think they are tackling it in the right way. I have not in my mind at the moment the exact figure, but I do not think I am far wrong when I say that the State made available to the various tourist bodies and boards that we have in this country something between £350,000 and £500,000—that is, to An Bord Fáilte and to An Fógra Fáilte, apart altogether from whatever money finds its way from the local authorities to the Tourist Association, the third body. The principal aim and the main object of both An Bord Fáilte and An Fógra Fáilte is to build up the tourist industry in this country in the off-season. Generally speaking, at what we call the peak, we get here nearly as many tourists as our existing accommodation will cater for and everybody is agreed that the most valuable addition to our income from tourists in this country would be that from tourists whom we can attract and entice to come here during the off-season.

Let us be honest about it. In the off-season, outside sporting facilities, we have very little attraction to offer to people from outside this country. The sporting facilities I have in mind are principally hunting, shooting and fishing. I do not presume to know anything at all about hunting beyond what I occasionally see or read of. I know very little or practically nothing about shooting, except what I am told by those who are deeply interested in it. Unfortunately, game in this country has almost disappeared, due entirely to neglect or to the ravages of vermin which seem to be nobody's business.

I know a little about fishing; I am not a good angler but I am a keen one. I have knocked around enough of the rivers and lakes in this country and I have talked sufficiently with old anglers, hotel keepers at angling resorts, boatmen, rivermen and others trying to get knowledge and experience from people who have a practical knowledge of it, to know that we have in our fresh water fisheries the greatest possible attraction and the greatest lure for the best type of tourist, the tourist whom we can induce to come here to spend money and give employment in the off-season. We have here in Ireland probably some of the finest salmon fishing in the whole continent of Europe. We have salmon fishing running here from as early as the 1st of January, on some of our rivers, up to the 12th October. I have myself personal experience of some Americans coming over here to fish for the first time, very many of them in the West of Ireland, because some of their friends who had been here told them about the fishing possibilities. I have actually fished on the same river with some who were staggered, completely staggered, at the idea that they could, with a little bit of luck and a small bit of skill, take out of our rivers salmon from 15 lb. to 30 lb. in weight. They did not think it was possible to get fish of that size fairly frequently in this country.

I want to put this consideration to the Parliamentary Secretary. It was certainly a matter I was keen on myself when this question of providing additional money for tourism was under consideration before I left the Department of Industry and Commerce. I am perfectly satisfied that the Government ought to insist on a fairly substantial amount of that £250,000 or £500,000 being utilised to build up and expand what in my opinion would be the greatest attraction we could have for the off-season. Remember it is the most valuable form of tourism because the angler who comes here, if he gets any sort of fair fishing at all—he will get no better fishing anywhere and he certainly will not get comparable fishing as cheaply elsewhere—unlike the ordinary tourist who comes here once in a lifetime, will come back the next year. The angler spends a good deal of money in the hotel, in the bar if you like. He employs a gillie and a boatman, sometimes two boatmen, every day as well. Certainly when he goes back, if he has caught a couple of fish, he is not going to underrate his achievement when he is talking about his experiences in the club, the "pub," or wherever he talks about them.

I get every week some of the principal papers that are published, particularly in Great Britain, for anglers and fishermen. Fógra Fáilte has somewhere in the neighbourhood of £250,000 to spend on publicity. In the principal angling newspaper published in Great Britain where there are no fewer than 3,000,000 anglers—that is 3,000,000 in anglers' clubs and associations apart altogether from those who are not members—some of them within an hour's journey from this country, I have not seen as much as half an inch of an advertisement. The Parliamentary Secretary knows, nobody knows better than he, and the Minister knows—in his own constituency there is one of the finest salmon rivers probably in Europe—that you are only tinkering with the problem when you talk of putting 2d. per lb. extra on salmon exports and 10/- extra on the rod licence. That is not going to get you anywhere. We have got to be serious about this matter and we should not be pretending to be doing something about it if we do not attempt something worth while.

To what extent is this going to enable a board of conservators either to maintain an employee or erect hatcheries throughout the country? To what extent is it going to enable them to employ and pay additional river watchers? To what extent will it enable them to pay additional money to the river watchers they have at the moment? Does anybody think you are going to have protection against explosives, against poison and against the use of nets by men who are being paid anything from £25 to £40 or £50 a year as river watchers? The thing is absurd. Of course, some of those fellows—I am speaking entirely personally; I am not referring to the poor man who takes the salmon out of the river in the ordinary way as I do not think he does a lot of harm —but so far as the fellows with the explosives or the poison are concerned, if I had my way they would not have the option of a fine—they would go to prison. Yet they are going into the District Court and most of them get away with a fine of 10/- and a bit of a lecture and that night or next day they will go out and snitch a salmon out of the river for which they will get £6 or £7.

I appreciate fully that neither the Minister nor the Parliamentary Secretary has direct responsibility in this matter but I would like to know if there is not a more useful way of spending a substantial proportion of the money which we are providing for our various tourist organisations? I know there is a valuable salmon and trout hatchery in this country that has for certain reasons been allowed to go into disuse and disrepair for a few years because the private owners just could not stand the expense of maintaining it. They are now ready to maintain it and that hatchery for both salmon and trout could be put working to-morrow for the expenditure of only a few hundred pounds. It would pay for itself over and over again. Does the Parliamentary Secretary consider that with an additional 2d. on export salmon, an additional 10/- on rod licences, he can improve the stocks of salmon while you have indiscriminate netting and almost indiscriminate trapping? There are so-called salmon traps in operation on some of the best-known fisheries in this country and they are so calculated that a 1½ lb. sea-trout could not get through them. The Parliamentary Secretary knows that himself or ought to know and if he does not he should be so informed by his officials and they should know it.

Do not forget this: that there is another reason to attract this type of tourist and it is because they do not come and stay in Dublin. They go down to the most remote parts of the country and to the West of Ireland. We hope very soon as a result of what is being done by the Fisheries Department, we will be getting them in greater numbers into the midland lake areas, to County Monaghan and West-meath as well as to the West and down through Kerry and Cork and the other remote places where employment is so badly needed.

We can give employment with the proper exploitation of our fisheries. I do not want to bring in anything about coarse fishing but there are 2,000,000 coarse fishermen in Britain just across from us. We would nearly pay them to come and take the coarse fish out of our lakes as we have so many game fish and we would not bother here about coarse fish. These people could go into the most remote parts of the country and see some of what are certainly the most beautiful places in this country, the places you do not normally see, where very often in order to get to a particularly good river or lake you may have to plough down a mile of boreen or across a half-mile of bog but when you get there you find something by way of beauty to talk about.

I do not want to prolong this debate but I honestly feel like opposing this. I do not think that would do very much good but I would like to ask the Parliamentary Secretary on this question of rod licences, has he given any consideration to having a licence for which one would pay a certain fee and be free to fish wherever one liked throughout the country? I know this is difficult because it is bound up with the local boards of conservators——

Is the Deputy aware that there are many privately-owned fisheries?

I know that, and I know that if I take out a £2 licence to-morrow in Drogheda and then go down to fish the day after in Galway, I pay another 10/- and if I go to Connemara the day after I pay again. After that, if I go to Bangor Erris or down to Kerry I have to pay again, if I am lucky enough to be able to get around a bit. Very often, too, a man's work takes him throughout the country or he is invited to some place and given a couple of days' free fishing but he has to take out a 10/- licence every time he moves. I remember one year myself in the last few years, and in addition to my £2 licence I think I had in all no fewer than five 10/-licences on top of that—not that I was fishing additional days because if I were fishing where I took out the £2 licence that is all I would have to pay. That may appear to be a small point but it is one which I have been asked to raise over and over again by a number of anglers.

I want to say this before I sit down. I want the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary to make an effort to get their hands legitimately on as much as possible of the money that we are providing for the tourist organisations for a legitimate and excellent purpose. I think it will be put to better use than it is at the moment. I warn them—as my colleague Deputy Dillon would say —that whether they do it or whether they do not, I will be at their heels on every opportunity I can get because I believe we have something there that is worth developing, something that would bring a tremendous return to this country. I believe that we have in our salmon, brown trout and sea-trout fisheries something that is probably unequalled—certainly unequalled in Europe outside Norway—and something which could be developed and instead of earning whatever we are earning from it at home, instead of earning around £3,250,000 by way of exports we could be earning five to six times that amount. But there is indiscriminate abuse, almost indiscriminate poisoning; netting, poisoning, trapping and explosives are being used on a widespread scale. I know that under the existing type of organisation that the Parliamentary Secretary has to operate, and certainly under the system he has to operate in relation to the formation of the boards of conservators and the method of financing them, it is not easy for him to make progress, and it is because I fully realise that that I am urging him to attempt to make some sort of revolutionary changes.

I am not advocating that there should be any additional impost on the taxpayers. All I am saying is that the money which is being voted by the taxpayers and being handed over for the development of tourism should be channelled in such a way as to bring the maximum return and the greatest degree of profit to the community. We can do that. We can attract a very considerable number of people here for salmon fishing in February, March, April, May and June, which is not a peak month in this country, and if it were properly advertised and if there were proper protection, stocking, and so on, in the rivers and lakes, we could also attract them in the month of September and, indeed, in the first half of October. Many hotels, boarding houses, guest houses and cottages in the remote parts of the country could earn good money from tourists, who would be getting good value for the money they would spend here and they would go back and speak well of Ireland.

There is very little that Deputy Morrissey has said with which I cannot agree wholeheartedly. The tone and tenor of his remarks were quite different from what I heard on the Second Stage. I would point out to him, however, that he has widened the scope of his remarks to extend far beyond what is contained in the Salmon Conservancy Fund Bill. It is specifically entitled a Salmon Bill. While I agree with what he has said about developing coarse fishing and inducing coarse fishing organisations in England to come here, that is not provided for or dealt with in this Bill. That matter is not being neglected. Quite recently there was a conference between Tourist Board officials and Fisheries Branch officials on that very question. I think Deputy Morrissey is also aware of the work which is being done by the Inland Fisheries Trust in relation to that, as well as the development of trout fishing. I think he and I agree that the development work is going in the right direction. I do not want to cavil at the Deputy's remark that it is not going on on a sufficiently large scale.

This Bill is to provide more money for protection and there is nothing in it for the other very admirable development matters to which Deputy Morrissey has referred. It is not to provide money for hatcheries or for the other matters which we all know are necessary for proper development, but I think he will agree with most people who take an interest in angling, particularly the experts in the Fisheries Branch, that if there is proper protection so as to allow for adequate natural spawning, that is a much better contribution to the stocking of rivers than artificial hatcheries. The fisheries experts would prefer that our rivers would be stocked in the natural way than by any method so far discovered by scientific investigation. That is particularly true in connection with trout in lakes. A great many well-intentioned people, keenly interested in angling, have put an enormous amount of voluntary work into the reduction of the number of predatory fish in these lakes for the reason that, if they did not do that, the work of their hatcheries would be in vain.

I am following Deputy Morrissey's example. I am not dealing with exactly what is in this Bill in my remarks about trout and lakes and coarse fishing. It is a salmon Bill specifically, designed to produce from the new levies on rods and exported salmon as much more as is being received at the present time from the licences payable by rodsmen and netsmen. That sum, in round figures, at the present time is £15,000 annually, and it is anticipated that in a full normal year these two levies—the 10/- duty on rods and the 2d per lb. on exported salmon—will bring in as much more, that is, in round figures, £30,000 in all. Twenty-six thousand pounds are being received from fishery rates.

I agree with Deputy Morrissey that it does not enshrine a very ambitious programme but it should help to increase the numbers where an increase is necessary. More important still, it will enable the boards of conservators to give better remuneration and to make the job of protecting the rivers a worthwhile job for those who are employed on it. That is more important than numbers.

I do not think there is anything relevant to the Bill in Deputy Morrissey's speech that I have to refer to. He has spoken along the lines on which my own mind is running. If he had criticism to offer, it is that the Bill does not go far enough. His speech is out of tune with the intentions of some of his colleagues in relation to specific provisions in the Bill, but they will be dealt with when we come to deal with the Bill section by section.

I hope you will get a lot more from the Tourist Board than you are getting here.

Resolution put and agreed to.
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