Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 14 Jul 1955

Vol. 152 No. 7

Committee on Finance. - Vote 28—Fisheries (Resumed).

Debate resumed on the motion:

That the Estimate be referred back for reconsideration.

Mr. Bartley

Last night I was replying to some criticisms which were entirely unwarranted by the facts. I want to draw the attention of the House to yet another criticism this morning, propagated by the same Minister to whose other criticisms I had to call attention last night. At column 1782 of Volume 151 of the Official Report, the Minister for Local Government said:—

"While I agree that Deputy Bartley may deserve some of the credit for these fishing boats for the Gaeltacht, I can never forget the fact that he was the gentleman who closed Meevagh boatyard...."

I do not want to make any reference to that other than to say that it is couched in language which can only be described as a very ciotógach sort of compliment, to say the least of it. However, that is not the matter to which I wish to refer. I want to refer to the closing down of the Meevagh boatyard. I take it that when the Minister for Local Government refers to "that gentleman" he is referring to me as the man who closed the Meevagh boatyard and to the period during which I was Parliamentary Secretary, having responsibility for fisheries.

Yesterday I had a question down to the Parliamentary Secretary to which he gave me a satisfactory reply. I asked him when it had been decided to close down the boatyard at Meevagh and I was given the following information: in the month of February, 1946, Comhlucht Iascaigh Mhara made a decision to close down the Meevagh boatyard and in October, 1947, notice was given to the owner that possession would be given up on 31st October, 1948. It is obvious from that that the boatyard could not have been closed before the date on which the notice became effective, namely, October 1948. I asked him also whether this decision required any superior sanction and I was told it did not. I also asked him if the decision to reopen required any superior sanction and I was told it did not.

I can only presume, therefore, that the Minister for Local Government was either most unscrupulous in making the statements which he made that I was responsible for the closing down of the boatyard, or else, and I think this is the more likely, because I am not disposed to attribute unscruplousness to any Deputy in this House, that he had not sufficient interest in the fishing industry, even in his own constituency of Donegal, to ascertain the facts. It is quite obvious in the circumstances that the statement made was a palpable misrepresentation and I hope the Minister for Local Government will take the first opportunity to correct it.

One of the interesting things about it is that from the time the decision to close the Meevagh boatyard became known the late Deputy Neil Blaney offered the strongest possible protest to the carrying out of the decision and he continued these protests over a long period. So far as I can recollect the present Minister for Agriculture, who was then in opposition, did not back up these protests here in Dáil Éireann. I speak subject to correction in that respect, but I certainly do recollect that the late Deputy Neil Blaney protested as vigorously as possible. His protest apparently did not get the same favourable hearing from the directors of the Sea Fisheries Association which the present Minister for Agriculture claims that he got when he became Minister but it is quite obvious that a Deputy in the position of the Minister responsible for fisheries would have ways and means of having his wishes carried out which an ordinary Deputy, whether he belonged to the Government Party or not, would not have.

For one thing half of the directors, the whole membership was eight, although at the time at which the decision was taken there were only seven, are nominated by the Minister and the other half by the fishermen. I want to leave out of the matter those directors nominated by the Minister, as I take it that the first obligation on them would be to secure, as far as they could, that the ministerial wishes would be given effect to and therefore they must be exonerated from blame in the matter.

There were six persons who were members of the board of directors in February, 1946, when the decision was taken who were also members of the committee of eight who made the decision to reopen. I think that the forcing of the hand of the board in that way was calculated to stultify the members of the board in the esteem of people who were interested in the development of fisheries. After all, one year was a very short time to reverse engines in a very important matter such as the closing down of a boatyard. I know that a number of other factors have been adduced to explain the matter away. They are not very creditable, and, therefore, I will not give voice to them because I do not believe them.

I think that the facts and circumstances surrounding the closing and reopening of this boatyard should not be thrown in as a bone of contention in this House, as, under statute, the committee of directors were charged with the administration of fisheries and this particular matter came within their duties and functions. To make political capital out of it is completely unworthy and should not have been done, but I must pay tribute to the valiant efforts of the late Deputy Neil Blaney to ensure that this decision would not be put into effect. I hope the Minister for Local Government will have the candour to correct the statement which he made. I think that the fact that I was a member of the Fianna Fáil Party in 1946 and 1947 is not sufficient justification on which to base a charge of this sort against me four or five years later when I was a Parliamentary Secretary.

The Minister has gone further than that, as far as I can make out, because at a meeting of the Middletown Fine Gael branch, held some time within the past year, statements were made concerning events, which, in themselves, are not untrue, but the happenings are attributed to me rather than to a Fine Gael decision. I will, if I may, with the permission of the Ceann Comhairle, read this criticism of the fisheries administration which was the subject of the pronouncement to which I take objection.

Mr. O. Flanagan

What is the Deputy about to quote from?

Mr. Bartley

I am about to quote from a report of a meeting of the Middletown Fine Gael branch, reported in the People's Press of the 7th January, 1955. This is the report:—

"Mr. So-and-so——

—it is not necessary to give his name—

——said the presence of foreign trawlers in our waters was a disgrace, but they had been here last year, and that with the permission of the then Government. Mr. Bartley stated ‘it was an education for the inshore fishermen whose methods were a hundred years behind.' The local T.D. had made a slight error at the time when he states he had got the Macha to chase them. The facts were that the boats were ten days out after completing contract when the Macha approached.”

Now, Deputy Cormac Breslin was the local Deputy referred to and I want to say these foreign boats were brought into Donegal by persons much more closely associated politically and otherwise with the Minister for Local Government than with any of the Fianna Fáil Party and the term "contract" indicates, of course, that the fishing was carried out on a contract entered into between the curers in Donegal and the owners of the foreign boats.

What are the facts about the fishing of these boats in the first instance? Deputy Breslin brought the matter to my notice and within two days of receipt of the information the Department of Defence sent the corvette to Donegal and cleared these boats out. With regard to the statement that "Deputy Bartley said that it was an education for the inshore fishermen whose methods were a hundred years behind", that is a very interesting reference because that very remark was made to me by the Minister for Local Government when he was making a case to allow a fleet of Dutch boats to fish out of Donegal ports. Among other things he said was that fishing in the area had not been practised for a long number of years and that these foreign boats might give us useful information.

In other words, the statement which he attributed to me is one which he made himself; he made it to me when I was Parliamentary Secretary. I think it is a disgraceful thing that any member of this House should go down to a Fine Gael branch where they could not possibly know the facts and attribute to me a statement he made himself. Part II of the Fisheries Act had not yet come into operation and I take it that the regulations against foreign boats were not quite as strict as they will be when that Part is brought into operation. But that is precisely the position. This was a firm of Dutch boats. They were to be brought in here to supply Donegal curers with herrings. On inquiries made by me I ascertained that the Dutch Government had made some regulation or imposed some obligation on the Dutch fishing companies to share their Mediterranean trade, which was considerable, in view of the fact that they were experiencing something of a slump generally and this particular company, in order to avoid the obligation imposed on them by their own Government, decided it might be a good thing to fish from Irish ports and keep what they had of the Mediterranean trade entirely for themselves.

I think that again the Minister for Local Government should mend his hand in that particular regard because it was he made the statement he attributed to me and he should admit that he misled the Middletown branch of Fine Gael in attributing such a statement to me. As a matter of fact, he knows that not alone were we of this Party opposed to bringing in foreign boats here to Ireland but that in fact we had in the 1952 Act imposed a clause insisting that all Irish fishing boats should be 100 per cent. Irish owned. The introduction of such a provision was justified by our experience in the past, particularly by the one to which I referred last night when referring to chartered trawlers.

The Parliamentary Secretary may not have had the same experience as I had in dealing with the various interests involved in the fishing industry. I had representations made to me to have the import of fish continued rather than attempt to catch it ourselves and I had from the same source a memorandum vehemently denouncing the importation of fish. These inconsistencies are quite common unfortunately in the fishing industry. If one looks at the Irish Times for the 16th November, 1951, one will find proof of what I say and if the Parliamentary Secretary searches his records he will find a memorandum from one of these organisations dated July, 1951, taking the opposite line. I was told at the first annual meeting of the Comhlachas that Dublin was the natural centre for the distribution of fish. That presupposes that the main supplies of fish would be imported and if that were to be the case I take it Dublin would act as a funnel for the rest of the country.

We held a different view on that and decided on a plan of establishing fishing stations around the coast with cold storage equipment so that we would rationalise the distribution of fish rather that dump fish on the market when the prices were not satisfactory. Another of the inconsistencies about which I have been speaking was that despite the clamour by fishermen's organisations to speed the issue of boats, I was told at a joint conference between the Bord Iascaigh Mhara and the Comhlachas that we had already issued too many boats and that we were glutting the market. Of course these statements do not bear any close examination. There is no such thing as a glutting of the market now in the same way as there was when imported fish was freely available and one of the best strokes for Irish fishermen, above and beyond all other measures introduced for the benefit of the Irish fishing industry, was the control of imports.

That, I would say, more than all other provisions combined helped to produce the stabilisation of the fishing industry which can be clearly seen in the columns of figures given in page 4 of a report for 1953. It deals with demersal fish and the figures give a picture of a degree of stability that never formerly was experienced in the fishing industry. As I have said there was a peak figure in 1945 and then a gradual decline. I am not worried by the decline; it was not so great and it has been on the uptake again for the past few years.

I am quite satisfied that stability has been reached in the fishing industry, based on the home market. That brings us to the other question of pelagic fish and I know that a great many enthusiastic people are pressing the Government, as they pressed the previous Government, to do something big about the production and sale of herrings and mackerel. On occasions when there has been a good market for herrings, even in recent years, a great many of our fishermen were urged to give up the idea that they were making something out of general fishing and to incur the expense of equipping themselves for herring fishing for a market which is very problematical.

It was pointed out by spokesmen of that viewpoint that the British Herring Board were able to make a big contract with the Russians but I recall that the chairman of the herring board warned the fishermen: "I warn you that you cannot depend on such contracts because overnight they could be scrapped for political or other reasons." Because of the danger of our fishermen finding themselves in that difficulty about herring sales on the only market available to this country in the past, I think the Fisheries Section of the Department would be wise to proceed slowly before encouraging a large number of fishermen to change over to herring fishing. What is the position in Norway with regard to herrings? It is a country very often held up as an example of what we should do.

I have been given figures which show that Norway produces 600,000 tons of fish every year and I understand it is very largely pelagic fish, but I also know that only one-fifth of that production is marketed in the traditional way, either cured or fresh. Eighty per cent. of the Norwegian production goes into meal or oil. They no longer go to the trouble and expense of putting it into barrels and trying to find markets for it, which was formerly the case. Until such time as we have established a sufficient number of reduction plants around the coast, we, too, ought to proceed slowly before getting into this very problematical kind of fishing. Once we can get to the position in which we can always guarantee a market for the fish and oil meal, the matter can be reconsidered.

There is one fact that emerges from the history of the herring trade, that the curing end of it was not the big end of it and, from all the facts that can be elicited, curing was only incidental to the fresh trade, that the curing of herrings was always curing of what was surplus to the fresh trade and the bigger the surplus was after the fresh market was satisfied the bigger the curing was. On only four occasions between 1923 and 1951 was there more than 50 per cent. of the total capture of herrings cured, and the percentage often fell very low indeed.

I have referred to this question of the herrings because I received a great many representations about it by people who came to me or wrote to me telling me that the effort about demersal fish on the home market was only fiddling with the job and that the big thing was to get in the herrings and send them all over Europe as was formerly the case. These people seem to forget that most of that market is now behind the Iron Curtain and that it is not so easy to get into it and that, when you send your goods into it, you have not any guarantee that you will be paid for them. While nobody decries the enthusiasm in that respect, somebody will have to inject a little bit of realism into whatever policy is to be formulated in relation to it.

In view of the cost of equipping herring boats, there is no reason why the State might not engage in it in the first years after the establishment of these reduction plants. If, then, private enterprise is prepared to take over, the State would only too gladly get out of the business as the State would only too gladly get out of the entire business if private enterprise would step in.

There is another cause of complaints. People who are in the business and who are not prepared to risk their capital—I am not blaming them for that— as soon as the State steps in and does anything, complain immediately of interference with private enterprise. That is a dog-in-the-manger attitude. The best way to satisfy the fears of private enterprise in that respect would be to say to private enterprise: "If you are not prepared to do it, we will set up these various plants and if private enterprise is able to satisfy us, in a few years, that they are able to take over and operate them successfully, the State would only too gladly allow them to do so."

The reason that I put down the motion to refer the Estimate back had nothing whatever to do with sea fishing. I am satisfied that the programme which was prepared before I left office is being implemented. I expressed satisfaction at the Parliamentary Secretary's reply to a question that I put to him about that matter. I do not want to start a competition with the Parliamentary Secretary as to who is to get the credit for it. That only does more harm than good among all the conflicting interests. They have enough conflicts of their own without political conflicts being thrown in on top of them.

If this programme of rationalising marketing, which is the big problem to be solved if the stability which the figures now show is to continue, is to be carried out, then these handling and storage plants are an absolute necessity. Credit must be given for what has been done within the past 12 or 18 months in the packaging and freezing of fish. Any of us who has bought this packaged frozen fish will have to agree, no matter how little taste he may have for fish, that it is an excellent product. I know people who have an ingrained but unreasoning objection to frozen fish to have been given this fish, without being told that it was frozen, who commented that it was the finest fresh fish that they had ever eaten. I must say that I felt very bucked by a tribute of that sort to our fishery administrators.

We have, apparently, good men running this job. I know they have tremendous difficulties in dealing with conflicts in the industry. I know that there is a very small staff in the Fisheries Branch. I know that they are hard working. When I went in there I knew they were overworked and I succeeded in getting some extra help. They were housed in what I used to describe as the only two tenement houses occupied by the Civil Service in Dublin. I am glad that they have been shifted to the principal street in the town and that they have more respectable looking premises, even though they are further removed from the Dáil.

I did not have the advantage of scanning the statement which was read by the Parliamentary Secretary and, therefore, I will have to ask him to give me some information which I know he read out, but which I could not retain very well. I do not wish to get any particulars from him about the programme of development of the seafishing side, about the plants that are to be erected—I am sufficiently acquainted with them. The only thing I would like to say is that, with regard to the amount and the costings, I understood the Galway job was to cost £62,500 but the Parliamentary Secretary says the sum is actually £55,100. There seems to be something left out. I would like the Parliamentary Secretary to verify whether or not it is the auction shed. Is it not being gone ahead with this year?

Mr. O. Flanagan

The total cost is expected to be about £56,000.

Mr. Bartley

Does that include the auction shed?

Mr. O. Flanagan

It does include the auction shed, yes.

Mr. Bartley

Then the board has been able to reduce the Estimate from £62,700 that is already provided. They are not reducing the amount of work.

It was really to the question of inland fisheries that I wanted to draw the attention of the Dáil. I took certain steps and I may say I took one step in relation to the matter which was challenged by the Parties now in the Government. I want to talk about the making of decisions. Mention was made of the three German boats. Nobody is to blame for these three German trawlers but myself. Nobody in the Fisheries Branch was responsible for that. The board are not responsible for it except in so far as they gave me answers to the various questions I put to them when I discovered that these three boats were available. Whatever blame is coming in respect of these three boats it is my blame and nobody else is responsible. I want the Parliamentary Secretary to remember that that was my decision.

I was tempted to refer to that matter because of another decision for which I was also responsible and that was the decision to impose a levy of 2d. a lb. on exported salmon and an excise duty of 10/- on salmon rod licences. That was my personal decision and when I say that I do not want to suggest it was arbitrary in any way. I went round the country, as the Parliamentary Secretary had done. I consulted the boards of conservators, anglers' associations and estuarine nets men. In fact, there was not an interest in the salmon industry either from the sporting or the commercial angle whose views I did not have. It was I who assessed those views myself. I came to the conclusion and, beyond asking them for factual information about certain things, I want to say that the officials did not give me any sort of tendentious advice to bring about a decision one way or the other.

The statement made by the Minister for Agriculture that I was forced to bring in the Salmon Conservancy Act by the Minister for Finance at the time is not true. I formulated these proposals myself. I took them to the Government. The proposals received a very close combing out by certain members of the Government. I got a very hard cross-examination from certain members about it. I was able, by the merits of the case, to satisy them —whether or not they were prepared enthusiastically to support it—to take a negative attitude and to withdraw their opposition. I do not want the Minister for Agriculture or the Parliamentary Secretary to be looking around for any scapegoats in either the Fisheries Branch or the Bord Iascaigh Mhara. The responsibility can be placed fairly and squarely on my shoulders. If anybody wants to say that these were political decisions I will not have an argument about that because the fact is that they were political only in so far as they were my personal responsibility and the result of my own thinking.

I am satisfied that what I did in relation to the duty was well done. I am prepared to justify it at any time. I am prepared to justify it on the basis of the representations which were made to me for and against. As a matter of fact, I do not recall any representations against, except one that was tantamount to producing the same result in a different way. In one place the nets men said: "We would rather you doubled the licence duty than do it in this way." I pointed out that doubling the licence duty would bring in only the same amount of money as we would get in this way on the figures that we know for the export of salmon, and when I added the further reason that, in the way I was doing it, they would only pay £4 initially for their licence and, after that, they would pay as they earned.

We did know and we do know that even the initial expenses of a £4 licence and the other boat and equipment expenses which these fishermen must incur weigh heavily upon them. We must bear in mind that, very often, they have to borrow money and that they are in debt for a few weeks' fishing, even in good times, before they can clear off the debt and start for themselves. I knew we would be doubling that initial outlay in respect of the licences and that the borrowing period would be still longer. I also knew that estuaries vary even in the same season. I knew that one estuary could be good and another one bad in the same season and that, in fact, in the same estuary one boat crew might have a lucky strike and another boat crew might do badly. In view of that circumstance, it struck me as being the fairest way to do it—to pay as you earn; if you do well you will pay more and if you do badly you will not pay so much.

I also had the further strengthening reason that, over a period of three years before the levy was imposed, the export price of salmon was, I think, between 6/- and 7/- a lb. I thought that 2d. a lb. up to the 1st June and 1d. a lb. thereafter was not too great a proportion of a market price of that order to impose on those who were catching most of the salmon.

The thing that was a little more difficult to justify was the excise duty of 10/- on the salmon rods. We knew that the salmon rods caught only about 10 per cent. of all the salmon and they were contributing in licence duty—I cannot recall the amount exactly—a ratio of, I think, at least 40 per cent. and these organised salmon anglers did not object to paying the extra 10/-. My conscience has been salved in the matter by a reply which the Parliamentary Secretary gave to me last year in which he told me the average catch per rod over the three seasons was 48lbs. On the average, that certainly justified the imposition of an extra 10/- on the licence duty for the rods. When one also considered that the income from licence duty over a period of 20 years had hardly changed and that salmon had gone up fourhold or fivefold in price we still, in equity, could justify what we had done.

If the Minister for Agriculture thinks I was compelled by the Minister for Finance to put this on to save the Exchequer he is completely mistaken. Nothing was further from the truth. I had no representations orally or written from the Minister for Finance on the matter. He knew nothing about it until I presented him with the draft proposals for a Bill. It was not to save the Exchequer. However, if one must look at it from that point of view I would offer for consideration this aspect of the question. As we know, salmon has for a number of years been in the shop windows in Dublin for anything from 6/- to 10/- a lb. and in the early part of the season we have seen it go as high as 15/- a lb.

We know that there are many people in this city and in every town in the country where there are fish shops who pass along and see this blood-red salmon on display with the tag "10/- per lb." on it and we know they cannot buy it. These same people very often see both home and visiting anglers with expensive paraphernalia setting out to engage in the sport of salmon fishing. These people cannot indulge in that sport, either.

I think this consideration is the strongest in support of what I did: why should these people as taxpayers be asked to subsidise the sport of people who can afford salmon angling or the profits of those who are commercially in the business? I do not think it is justifiable at all, and, from every aspect, what I did was quite fair. The only place in which any sort of organised criticism of it was offered was, I think, in Donegal, and that arose very largely from an unpremeditated reply to an impromptu question, by the Taoiseach, I think, during an election meeting in some part of Donegal. Without thinking, I understand that the Taoiseach said he would withdraw this altogether, if he got into office.

I am quite satisfied that if the Taoiseach had had the facts, pro and con, put to him as they were put to me, he would not have committed himself quite so readily in the matter. I understand that even in Donegal since then it is becoming clear that this extra tax would not fall any more heavily upon them by the method I adopted than if their licences were to be doubled. The fact is that the income from licence duties required to be doubled if the boards of conservators were to make ends meet and we are doing very little more than making ends meet.

The Book of Estimates now means very little, even to Deputies, and I think the presentation of the Fisheries Estimates will have to be radically altered in the future because of the effects of the 1952 Fisheries Act. The heavy expenditure is not now shown in the book, as the Parliamentary Secretary knows. The money required for boats and gear is now provided by way of repayable advances from the Exchequer and does not appear in the book, and therefore the sum of £116,000 which the Parliamentary Secretary has asked the Dáil to vote is only part of the expenditure.

Coming to the question of the grants to the boards of conservators, if one looks at page 138 under sub-head F 1 (4), one will see in 1954-55 a sum of £10 and in the column headed 1955-56 a sum of £12,000. Anybody looking at that would say at first glance that this is an extraordinary increase in grants to boards of conservators—from £10 to £12,000. Of course, that is an entirely illusory view and I think the Parliamentary Secretary has given a table of figures in his statement which sets out what the position has been. In 1945-46 the sum paid to the boards was £1,395. That rose by the year 1953-54 to a sum of £8,000, and the result of that increase was that, in 1954-55 the Fisheries Branch put in only a token Estimate of £10 because we could not know from then on what the actual necessities of the position would be. A token Estimate was put in and this difference between £10 and £12,000 does not really represent the position at all.

The Parliamentary Secretary made a reference to this matter and I gathered from him that the payment to these boards by way of grant is up by £14,000. That is not the statement the book contains and I take it that the £14,000 he referred to includes payments to local authorities under the Fisheries Act, 1925, in the matter of rates. I think that should be clarified. What I want to say to the Parliamentary Secretary is this—and it is the reason why I gave notice of intention to move that the Estimate be referred back for reconsideration—that this sum of £12,000 in our experience of the exigencies of protection is not enough. I planned to get from the increased duties an extra £15,000 to £18,000 annually, in addition to what we were already giving them by way of grants, and not in lieu, which is the important thing. Our boards of conservators are no better off than they were —and I do not think they are as well off as they were—under the £8,000 which they were given by way of grants in 1953-54.

In view of the increased cost of, and the increased demand for protection services, because of the terrific incentive there is to go poaching nowadays, with the price of salmon as it is, the boards will have to be supplied with some better means—I do not say of eliminating poaching because that is humanly impossible—of reducing poaching to manageable proportions. If something is not done, the anglers' sport will disappear, but, worse still, the livelihood of the estuarine fishermen will disappear, and it is with them that I am more concerned than with anybody else. These fishermen are genuinely interested to see that proper protection is supplied, and, seeing that the Minister for Agriculture put an end to the source of income he had under the Salmon Conservancy Fund, it is up to him to use his good offices with the Minister for Finance to get in the coming year a sum of between £18,000 and £22,000.

Mr. O. Flanagan

For what?

Mr. Bartley

For the boards of conservators.

Mr. O. Flanagan

There is enough being provided in the Estimate. We do not believe in providing more than is necessary. The sum we are providing now is the greatest sum we have ever asked the House to provide for boards of conservators and we feel it will meet all the cases reasonably.

Mr. Bartley

Yes, but the snag in what the Parliamentary Secretary says is that he is preserving the status quo and when he says to me that more money is being provided, I say to him that the need for still further money is there, that the costs of protection have gone up and have gone up at a far steeper rate than this slight increase compensates for. Furthermore, £9,000 of this sum of £12,000 which he is now giving by way of grant has in fact been collected under the levy imposed by the Salmon Conservancy Act while it was in operation. In other words, they are only giving now £3,000 from the Exchequer. The other £9,000 was supplied by the trade.

Mr. O. Flanagan

Is the Deputy advocating that we should have the salmon levy again, that we should reimpose it?

Mr. Bartley

There is nothing like giving a frank reply to a straight question. I have not changed my opinion.

Mr. O. Flanagan

You think we should.

Mr. Bartley

I have not changed my opinion and I want to reiterate that it was my decision. It was not a decision of the officials in fisheries or of the Minister for Finance. I did not take that decision arbitrarily. I went around the country, as well as consulting officials, got all the best information I could from every type of salmon fisherman, and, having got it all and having assessed it, I came to this conclusion and I still believe I came to the right conclusion. I still believe that the estuarine fisherman is anxious to contribute to fishery protection and I know that, in one of the Cork districts, the fishermen quite voluntarily over a year or two gave up so much per fish to the boards of conservators for this purpose. That indicates to me that there is a willingness on the part of the fishermen to make some extra contribution, but the fact is that the industry has always been held to be sufficiently profitable to contribute somewhat more now, in the actual amount of money, for its own protection than it contributed 20 years ago. That is a very reasonable proposition, in view of the depreciation in the value of money in the meantime.

It is because of that particular question that I moved to refer the Estimate back for reconsideration. I do not want to put the Dáil to the trouble of voting on this. It would be far better, having said all I have said, to leave it to the judgment of those who are charged with the administration of fisheries to get the money that is necessary. There is a very strong obligation on the Minister for Agriculture to get the increased sum of money that would ordinarily be available under the levy. While the dicision to impose it was my personal decision, I know that the decision to revoke it was his personal decision; and it is too bad if this is going to be a contest between two successors in this fisheries administration on a question of this sort. It should not be a political football; the economics of the salmon industry are too important to have it treated in that way.

I earnestly ask the Minister to try to achieve the purpose which we had in mind when we imposed the levy and to ensure that the money will be got now by direct grant from the Exchequer to the boards. I ask that he should not be cheeseparing and keeping them down to the very meagre and inadequate services which have prevailed heretofore. I hope he will allow them to carry out the plans which all of them had for the better protection of our salmon industry.

There are many matters which one could deal with—particularly one so closely associated with the fishing industry as a Parliamentary Secretary assigned to the Fisheries Section alone. If there are any complaints about the cost of fish and the returns which the fishermen are getting, I do not think they are well-founded. I was pleased to see, in the report which the Fisheries Branch issued for the year 1953, that the fishermen got the highest return per cwt. yet recorded. That is very satisfactory, and if anyone wants to speak from the consumer point of view and say that this is unwarranted by the circumstances, one or two figures will satisfy his mind that he is on the wrong track.

The cost of the materials and instruments which the fisherman has been using have increased very steeply between 1945 and 1951, when I compiled a few statistics. Trammel nets increased over the period by over 55 per cent.; ropes increased by 225 per cent.; herring nets increased by 105 per cent.; mackerel nets increased by 154.18 per cent.; trawl nets increased by 87 per cent. and seine nets increased by 38 per cent. All these items produced an average increase of about 111 per cent. between 1945 and 1951. On checking the prices of fish over the same period, I find that they have increased by only 20 per cent. Therefore, the fisherman's return has not kept step with the cost of the instruments of his industry. I do not think any complaint, that the operation of the Control of Imports Orders is keeping the price unduly high here, can be substantiated in face of these facts.

It is satisfactory to know that the industry is now on a steady keel, that stability has been reached and that the marketing of fish will no longer be a problem here when we get these plants and establishments up. There is one thing that cold storage can do for us, in any event—it can preserve a far larger proportion of our national consumption of fish than any efforts in that direction can do for the 50,000,000 people in Great Britain. In that respect, I would like to supplement what I had to say about the development of the pelagic fishing for export. In spite of the big output of fish in Great Britain, because of their very large consumption they buy in round figures every year about £2,000,000 worth of fish. With our cold storage plants and other provisions for preserving fish, that market is there open to us. I think it can be exploited much more easily and much more profitably than any market in any part of Europe. It is a further justification for the expenditure which is being embarked upon now in that respect.

Níl a thuille le rá agam, ach amháin go bhfuil mé thar a bheith sásta go bhfuil staidéaracht sroichte againn i dtionscal an iascaigh, go bhfuil dul chun cinn anois déanta leis an iascach nach raibh cheana ann agus go bhfuilmid ar an mbealach ceart agus ar an mbóthar ceart le rath agus feabhas a chur air. B'fhéidir nár mhiste tagairt a dhéanamh do rud greannmhar adúbhradh tamall ó shoin, nuair a bhí duine d'oifigigh an iascaigh ag tabhairt léachta uaidh annseo, mar gheall ar rud adúirt duine de na cainteoirí ag labhairt dó maidir leis an rún buíochais. Thagair sé do thrí ré, do thrí Airí nó Rúnaithe Parlaiminte a bhí i bhfeighil an iascaigh, agus thug sé ainm fá leith ar gach aon cheann acu. An chéad duine, bhaist sé ré "The Egg and I" air. Ar an dara duine bhaist sé "The Poitín Injection" air, agus ar an tríú duine. "The Egg Nog." Níl a fhios agam cén chiall atá le baint as an gcéad leas-ainm ná as an tríú ceann, ach tá sórt tuairim agam cén chiall is féidir a bhaint as "The Poitín Injection." Tá an "Poitín Injection" ag oibriú fós agus má tá sé ag tabhairt éifeachta uaidh, tá mé lántsásta. Tá súil agam, má tá sé ag cibriú go maith, nach lease leis an Rúnaí Parlaiminte tuille den "Poitín Injection" a thabhairt dó.

Minister for Agriculture (Mr. Dillon)

I would like to intervene shortly in this debate. I feel sure the House will understand that, as regards the queries of a specific character that may be raised by Deputies, the Parliamentary Secretary will accept responsibility for dealing with them when he comes to conclude the debate. He keeps in close daily contact with the fishery division and is responsible for the, I think, satisfactory progress to which Deputy Bartley, in a very responsible speech, has referred.

The reason I intervene at this stage is to confirm the sentiments expressed by Deputy Bartley when he said he thought it was desirable to discuss this Estimate in an objective and dispassionate way inasmuch as it is pretty clear that Deputies on all sides of the House are joined in a common desire to see the fishery industry improved and helped in any way that it is possible for the Government and the Oireachtas to help it. It was in that spirit that the Parliamentary Secretary in his opening address referred to the three German boats. The difficulty is that if you adopt that spirit and refer to the three German boats in terms of moderate objectivity your very moderation may be interpreted that you have changed your mind about the three German boats. I do not think that the Parliamentary Secretary or I have changed our minds a bit about the three German boats. They look just as daft to us now as the day they were first floated.

I think it is sound policy, when one Government has embarked upon a certain line of work, to give that enterprise a full chance to stand or fall on its merits. I think it behoves an incoming Government to lean backwards a little in order to give an enterprise set on foot by its predecessors the fullest possible chance of justifying itself if it is possible for it to do so. But that should not be taken as evidence of a change of mind as to the merits of the enterprise as developed by Deputy Bartley when he was Parliamentary Secretary.

The Parliamentary Secretary said, when dealing with these three boats, that after another year the matter would be reviewed. It would have been quite possible for the Parliamentary Secretary, if he wanted to do it, to read out the history of these three boats during their first year. If he had done so and had emphasised it I think he would have had a catastrophic tale to tell. There were very heavy losses partly because the boats were not at sea at all. They were undergoing extensive repairs. I do not want to go into a long litany of all the difficulties that were encountered with these boats. I have no doubt that Deputy Bartley in initiating this project did it with the best intention. I think he was wrong. I think the Parliamentary Secretary thinks he was wrong but both of us are prepared to concede at once that he believed he was doing something he thought would be in the best interests of the industry.

The Parliamentary Secretary and I are not so blinded to our imperfections that we do not realise we may be wrong. We are quite satisfied that it is better to let the thing go on, to give it the fullest chance to justify itself if that is possible and at the end of another year, when presumably these boats will not have the difficulties to contend with that they certainly did have during the first year, to see when they are functioning 100 per cent. whether or not they will justify their existence. But we have got to bear in mind that whatever the future of these boats may be it is right that the Oireachtas should know clearly, certainly and categorically that the policy of this Government is to found the fishing industry on the inshore fishermen.

We have no intention of promoting any scheme which would substitute trawlers owned by Irishmen or foreigners which would operate to supply the market here to the detriment of the inshore fishermen. In my opinion, if the whole scheme of reserving the Irish market for Irish fishermen does not operate to evoke a generous inshore fishing fleet based on boat-owning fishermen, then the whole policy of restricting the Irish market is misconceived and a mistake.

Mr. Bartley

I agree with that.

Mr. Dillon

It is a good thing we have got agreement on that all round the House. If that agreement is all round the House, I want to sound a somewhat more optimistic note than some of us are prepared to do. I have always held, since 1948, that, given resolute, steady progress towards an agreed objective in the fishery business, we would get it in time. Deputy Bartley had the same experience as I had—the Parliamentary Secretary is now having it in a lesser degree— the carping criticisms of those who wanted to make a mountain out of every molehill in the early stages of getting inshore fishing back on its feet.

I was told a dozen times that I was chasing rainbows, that I would never get a fish from the inshore fishermen and that the whole thing was illusory and would break up in due time. Nevertheless, Deputy Bartley referred to the fact that shortly after I came into office in 1948 I directed the Sea Fisheries Association to buy boats. Yes, I did. I remember getting authority from the Government to set every boatyard in Ireland to work full time on the construction of 50 ft. boats and then to go to all the boatyards in Scotland and get 50 ft. boats from them because at that time we had no boats.

We were asking the inshore fishermen to build up a fish supply for this country without the necessary boats with which to do it and thus imperil their own lives. In the initial stages we got boats wherever we could get them. We reopened the boatyard at Fanny's Bay in Donegal which had been closed down. We put it to build boats again, which it is now doing. We increased the capacity of the boatyard and acquired the boatyard at Baltimore.

Signs on it, I think it is true to say that we have provided, over the past six or seven years, between 40 and 50 new boats for the inshore fishermen and we are now reaching within reasonable distance of getting a respectable fishing fleet operating around the coast generally. Deputy Bartley then went on to refer to something which I think is very vital. There does come a time, and we have got to foresee it, when we will be able to supply the total demand for demersal fish in this country. The question we have to ask ourselves, when that time comes, is: "Will we stop there? That is as far as we will go". I think that would be fatal. We have got to face the fact that the next big development is the large scale capture of pelagic fish.

I entirely agree with Deputy Bartley and I sympathise with him in the criticisms he had to encounter—I had also to encounter the same criticisms— as to why we did not build up a vast curing establishment quite oblivious of what we would do with the cured fish. We do not believe that there is accessible to us a vast market for cured fish.

I recently attended as vice-chairman a meeting of the Council of Ministers of the Food and Agricultural Organisation of O.E.E.C. in Paris and when the programme of work for next year was being formulated I asked the director-general if the reference to food in this programme included fish. He said it did, there was a great deal of talk about food surpluses in the world. I said to him: "I do not believe there is such a thing as a surplus of food in the world. I do not believe there ever can be a surplus of food in the world, in the true sense of the word, because I never heard of any edible food being available which could not be sold somewhere if the person who had it to sell was prepared to take a low enough price for it". The real fact is, in parts of the world you have a quantity of food for which you want prices nobody is prepared to pay and then it is called a surplus.

I think there is one commodity of which it could be literally said there is a surplus in the world and that is fish. The reason there is a surplus is because there are millions and millions of people who are hungry for fish and there are thousands of fishermen ready and willing to go out and catch them, but there is no means of bringing the hungry millions into contact with the idle fishermen who want to work. I said I was prepared to judge the success or failure of the Director-General of this Council of Ministers of O.E.E.C. on whether he can find in Europe a willing buyer of fish and introduce him to a willing vendor thereof. I know they exist. I know that at the present time they are not being brought together and if this Council of O.E.E.C. is going to achieve any substantial progress then it ought to be possible to do it, and if they cannot do it, I very much doubt if they will be able to do anything.

I shall wait with interest to see whether O.E.E.C. in its agriculture and food division will be able to provide that liaison which would open a market for cured fish which does exist. Even if it does, I still agree with Deputy Bartley that the sheet-anchor of large-scale pelagic fishing off our coast is fishmeal. Until we are equipped to say to the fishermen: "Go out confidently to fish for herring and when you bring it home, sell as much of it as you can in the fresh market and if there is a curing market available, sell as much more there as you can get a satisfactory price for, but whatever surplus is left we will take it for conversion into fishmeal."

Naturally, the fishmeal price will not be as good as the fresh market or the cured fish price where there is a willing buyer, but, it assures the fishermen who go out to fish for herring that they will never have to return the fish to the sea. If a man fishes on a sufficiently large scale and habitually brings to shore a sufficient bulk of fish he will be certain of a steady, assured income. There will be times when, if the bulk of the catch has to go into fishmeal he will not be as well paid as he would be, if he could sell it in the fresh or cured fish markets. But there will be times when the fresh market will take the bulk of his catch and those will be prosperous times. At the other times when only part of the catch goes to the cured or fresh markets and the bulk to fishmeal, these will be relatively hard times but he will be secure at all times, and if we find our way into permanent markets for cured fish, the herring fishermen will be entitled to look forward to larger and larger periods of prosperity.

The difficulty about that is the traditional difficulty of the hen and the egg. You cannot get the herrings until you have the means of giving the herring fishermen security, but if you accept that proposition you will have to face the fact that you will have to provide fishmeal plants where you have no herrings or other fish, or certainly not enough herring or other fish to operate them economically. First of all a fishmeal plant to be economic must have a minimum capacity, and that minimum capacity to be operated economically must operate continuously for about 60 days, I think, per annum.

When we build fishmeal plants, as sure as there is an eye in a goat, we will be harried by wiseacres who say: "Look at them standing idle. There is the plant but there is no fish." We have to face up to that. Even when we put our hands to this task we will not get fish until we have the plant to process them, and as certainly as we erect the plant, the fish will not be available, for some considerable time and the plant will have to stand, possibly uneconomic, until we organise permanent fish supplies.

I am allowing myself to look a long time ahead, but I do not see any hope for the industry unless we are prepared to look boldly a long time ahead and make up our minds that demersal fishing while vital, is not enough and that we intend to set up a scheme which will make pelagic fishing permanently secure and profitable for those who equip themselves perennially to engage in it.

The worst of allowing oneself to intervene in a debate in circumstances of this kind when one is deeply interested is that one is inclined to dwell too long on it, and the Parliamentary Secretary is here available to deal in the greatest detail with those problems. I rejoice that largely as a result of the work initiated by Deputy Seán MacBride—and this House should never forget it—we have secured growing quotas in the French market for lobster and shellfish, and this year we have succeeded under the new French Trade Agreement in getting quotas for lobsters so large that it may tax our resources to fill them. That is the way it should be.

It is a profitable trade and I sincerely hope that those of our fishermen who engage in that will put their backs into the job and get a sufficient quantity of lobster langouste for our French quotas, because it will be most unfortunate if, having secured these quotas, we fail to fill them. I want to go on record as saying I have a clear and distinct recollection that it was Deputy Seán MacBride, when he was Minister for External Affairs, who wrought powerfully and often without much encouragement to break his way into the French market with these shellfish. Had we not got in first of all under one of the trade agreements we would not have got the quotas we now enjoy, and he is entitled to that tribute of gratitude from any Minister for Fisheries who follows the work which he did.

Deputy Bartley said that he had sponsored a levy on salmon. I think he is wrong in that. I think that Deputy Bartley was misled. The levy on salmon was operated, in fact, not to help the board of conservators but to relieve the Exchequer.

Mr. Bartley

That was not the intention.

Mr. Dillon

I believe in leaving to the Lord Almighty to judge the innermost motions of every man's soul. I can only read facts and judge them. I suppose there never was a man who, when he stood upon the scaffold, who did not say: "I did not mean to kill him. I only meant to split his skull." That does not alter the fact that, when he was tried before 12 jurymen, the view they took was that when he raised the heavy hatchet and bisected his neighbour's skull his intention must be judged by the result of his act. One cannot blame the jury if they took the view that they could not interpret this man's conduct as confirming his pious intention.

What are the facts in this matter? In 1947-48 the Exchequer provided £1,395 to help boards of conservators to meet the expenses that fell upon them over and above what their other income would bring in. In 1948-49 the sum of £2,000 was provided for that purpose; in 1949-50 the sum of £2,520 was provided for that purpose; in 1950-51 the sum of £3,280 was provided; in 1951-52, £3,920; in 1952-53, £3,500 was provided and in 1953-54, £8,000 was required from the Exchequer to help boards of conservators to meet the charges that came in course of payment because their revenue from other sources such as the rates they were entitled to levy would not be sufficient for them. The Deputy may say that it may be purely coincidental that at the same moment a man got the brilliant idea that if he levied 2d. per lb. on salmon exported it would bring into the Exchequer £9,000.

I put it to ordinary Deputies that if they see these charges falling on the Exchequer and recall that Deputy MacEntee, the Minister for Finance at the time, was performing handsprings all over the country taxing sugar, tea, tobacco, etc., then found that the sum of £8,000 was being paid to boards of conservators, he would naturally ask, "what is that for?" When told that it was for the protection of the salmon fisheries would he not say: "Let them protect themselves; they are getting 10/- a lb. for salmon, and there will have to be a levy put on the salmon exported."

Mr. Bartley

The Minister may accept it from me that the Minister for Finance never made any representations to me on the matter.

Mr. Dillon

Deputy Bartley says that and I accept it. He must be a powerful personality. I ask the House to imagine this man with the silent aura going around proclaiming that the Treasury was providing £8,000 in 1953-54 to help boards of conservators. The Parliamentary Secretary now comes along and says that it was purely coincidental when the Minister for Finance put an export levy of 2d. a lb. on salmon which produced £9,400. Whoever initiated the plan or implemented the plan, the point that is significant is that when Deputy MacEntee came to draw his Estimates for 1954-55 the provision that was made in those Estimates for this purpose was £10.

Mr. Bartley

It was a token sum. Does the Minister not recognise that the grants were increasing so much that the Department of Fisheries were unable to estimate accurately and dealt with only a token sum?

Mr. Dillon

All I know is that the record shows that the only person who benefited from the imposition of the levy on the export of salmon was the Exchequer. Its liability was reduced from £8,000 to £10. There are a lot of people in this country who believe that if our farmers attain to any degree of modest prosperity, or that if our fishermen attain to any degree of modest prosperity it is an outrage. They seem to take the view that God meant them to be poor, and that if they dare raise their heads it is time they were brought down to the status which God intended for them—something lowly, to be hewers of wood and drawers of water, and respectfully to read of the august proceedings of sophisticated people in College Green and in the cities and towns of this country.

I do not take that view. I do not believe for a moment that if the farmers and the fishermen of this country dare to raise their heads and attain to a modest standard of comfort that the tax-gatherer should be sent around amongst them to skim off the cream and to put them back in their places. I object in principle to the proposition that, whenever agricultural produce or fishery products show the prospect of providing a measure of profit for those engaged in either branch of our economy, that the tax-gatherer is instantly to be alerted to put a levy on their produce and see that they do not get rich too quickly.

Mr. Bartley

The Minister knows that the analogy he has drawn is entirely inapt. Surely, he recognises that the farmer has to raise the animals that he sells, and that the fisherman has not to rear the salmon.

Mr. Dillon

I do not believe that Deputy Bartley is unsympathetic to our fishermen. At the same time, I do not believe that what he says is true. I ask him to think of our fishermen along the west coast who go out fishing for salmon. They go out far beyond the three mile limit in the stormiest and roughest of weather. I believe that they and the man who has ever reared a calf or produced a gallon of milk are entitled to a reward for their labours. Every time a fisherman goes out fishing he takes a risk. I do not think that Deputy Bartley, or anyone on the Fianna Fáil Benches, thinks that fishing is an easy, soft job. I think that anything our fishermen get they earn it hard, and I do not think that the average landsman understands at all the hardships which our fishermen are normally exposed to. If it is true, as I believe it is true, that the farmer is entitled to whatever he can earn and there is no reason to apologise if he on rare occasions attains a period of relative prosperity, that is doubly true of those who go down to the sea in ships.

I think what Deputy Bartley overlooked was that there are powerful vested interests in this country and there always have been who have tried to get their foot in the door of taxing agricultural and fishery products at the point of export. Every Minister for Agriculture since this State was founded has fought a lone battle to prevent that principle being adopted by the Government. There have been powerful and vocal interests who often expressed themselves inside the four walls of this Oireachtas to the effect that it was time the farmers were put back where they belong.

If you want to establish the principle of levying a tax on agricultural or fishery exports, I warn the Deputies here; you will start something that no one will be able to control. Once allow that principle to be infringed and you deliver the farmer and the fisherman into the hands of the tax gatherer who will bleed them white. Remember that traditionally neither the farmers nor the fishermen have ever been able to organise themselves with half the efficiency for their own protection as other powerful interests here have shown themselves capable of doing for their interests.

Every Minister for Fisheries and every Minister for Agriculture has the painful experience of learning that while he spends all his waking hours trying to protect the legitimate interests of the farmer and the fishermen, he is the perennial object of acrimonious abuse both from farmers and fishermen. Deputy Bartley has himself referred to that, but that ought not to alter the attitude of those who accept this responsibility, to be true to their trust and to see that that very important principle, the taxing of exports for the relief of the Exchequer, will not be adopted. That is the story of the levy on salmon. Whatever the intentions were, the fact is that the levy on salmon relieved the Exchequer and nobody else. The facts are that the levy on salmon is gone but the funds requisite effectively to protect our fisheries are being and will continue to be provided.

I am not going to say very much to-day about boards of conservators, but there is a great deal that those boards ought to do to put their affairs in order and to do the job they are set up to do. I shall content myself by saying at this stage that the work they are meant to do is going to be done. The right people to do it are the boards of conservators. Many of the boards do their job and do it well. Some others do not. That situation cannot be allowed to continue and it is well to give full and fair notice that while those boards of conservators that are prepared to do their job can look to the Department of Fisheries for all the help they want, those that spend the bulk of their time slanging one another in public and then staging conciliation meetings instead of attending to the business of the fisheries, cannot be allowed to continue in this disedifying and disgraceful inefficiency.

The last thing to which I wish to refer is the Inland Fisheries Trust. The Parliamentary Secretary has made reference to this and I would invite the assistance of Deputies from all sides of the House to help us in popularising and publicising the work of this trust. There is not the slightest doubt that even in the relatively short time it has been operating striking results have been achieved. Two interesting articles appeared recently in one of our daily newspapers referring in a factual way to the results that are already there for all to see. But I want to reiterate the words used by the Parliamentary Secretary, that quite apart from the value of the 5/- subscription that individual members joining the trust contribute, it is a real help if anglers throughout the country join as members of the trust more for the moral support they give than for the value of their subscription.

The trust wants to collaborate closely with local anglers' associations. Now perhaps Deputy Bartley will sympathise with me in this. The whole aim and object of this trust is to preserve the identity, the zeal and enthusiasm of the local anglers' associations and to work closely with them. Yet you find a lot of mischievous busybodies going around whispering and snorting that the Inland Fisheries Trust is some diabolical conspiracy to concentrate control of all the inland fisheries in the hands of civil servants in Dublin. No more idiotic misapprehension could conceivably be made. The sole purpose of the Inland Fisheries Trust is to make available to the local angling association the technical advice and facilities that a local angling association could not conceivably have unless it was in a position to hire them from a central body which would organise them in order to have them available for all the local associations as and when they were required.

The scheme is operating admirably and in so far as the central organisation exists it exists only as a servant to be called upon by the local angling association on whom the primary responsibility rests for their own stretch of water, whether it be lake or river, in the district. The whole desire of the Inland Fisheries Trust is to promote, sustain and strengthen the sense of responsibility of the local angling association. Those who suggest that the trust is designed to bring a concentration of power over inland fisheries into some central office in Dublin are simply barking up the wrong tree. I do not imagine for one moment that that information will deter them from continuing to bark up every wrong tree they can find, because some people are born to mischief and seem to have little else to do but promote it.

Anyone who wants to see the inland fisheries of this country improved, I would ask for his co-operation with the Inland Fisheries Trust. And, if he wants a demonstration of what can be done in a short time by the intelligent co-operation of a local fishery association with the trust, I would refer him to the record of Lough Sheelin, near Oldcastle in the County Cavan, which, 50 years ago, was famous in Western Europe as one of the best trout lakes in existence. Twenty years ago it was practically void of trout; having been at one time probably the greatest May fly lake in this country, it had become a lake in which it was almost impossible to catch a trout at all.

I do not think it is a serious exaggeration to say that to-day, largely as a result of the operations of the trust, it is back to something more closely approximating to its best days and shows every prospect of exceeding the best that it has ever done in its past history. I think the same story could be told of many other stretches of water and in each case that result has come from the effective co-operation of the Inland Fisheries Trust with the local angling associations. I would be grateful if Deputies on both sides of the House would give us their help in spreading the work of that trust over the whole country in the assurance that the fruits of their labour will provide us with one of the best tourist attractions this country can provide.

Think of what it costs at the present time to hire a stretch of water in England or in Scotland for trout fishing! Think what rents are gladly paid for relatively poor trout fishing in these two countries! Think of the fact that in a large part of the West of Ireland for the payment of some trifling sum the people here and the visitors can enjoy access to all water managed by the Inland Fisheries Trust. Five shillings gives them access not to one restricted length of water but to lakes and rivers scattered all over the country.

Now, if we can get this tourist amenity over to the hundreds of thousands of people in England who long for access to trout water, for whom it is a certain grievance that every yard of available trout water in England and in Scotland is in private hands and is rented for the exclusive use of small groups of wealthy men who can afford to pay the high rents these waters command, while here in Ireland an hour and ten minutes journey from London, for the payment of five shillings, they can get in a wide variety of centres unlimited fishing for trout and have every reason to anticipate that the quality of the fishing will steadily improve year after year. Surely that must constitute a most attractive amenity for a peculiarily desirable type of tourist; because the average fishing tourist, as everybody knows, is a decent kind of tourist and to have him about the place is no hardship. With some tourists, and it is our business to get them to visit us, we often wish that it is the neighbour's town they stayed in.

The average fishing tourist is a decent kind of man and a decent, quiet kind of woman; and if one has five or six of them in one's own town one will never notice them because they are a friendly, neighbourly people. I would like to see more of them coming to this country and, in that regard, we have to bear in mind we have no Mardi Gras; we have no bull fights; we have no Paris, and all that connotes. We have none of the mysteries of Arabia to lure the sophisticated tourist to our shores. But we have fish.

Mr. Corish

You cannot catch the fish.

Mr. Dillon

They may have carp in Paris and they may have unknown fish in Barcelona, and there may be some queer fish in the Middle East. We have trout, and there is a great potential demand for the opportunity to fish for trout. They can get in Ireland all they want to get for 5/- per year. Surely, if there was no other reason, that is a good enough reason to authorise me to ask the cordial collaboration of everybody to help me in improving this amenity. It can be a great money earner for the community. It can constitute a great contribution to our balance of payments. It can help our tourist trade, which, all are agreed, must in future be one of the most potent instruments we have for maintaining a proper balance in our international payments position.

These grave responsibilities devolve mainly on the shoulders of the Parliamentary Secretary. As Deputy Bartley has so generously said, if we are to judge of his prospective achievements by his performance in his first year of office, we have every reason to be optimistic about the prospects of the fisheries of this country, marine and inland as well.

Mr. Breslin

As the House is aware, this Vote for Fisheries is of the utmost importance to thousands of our inshore fishermen around our rocky coast, fishermen who, even at the best of times, eke out a very precarous livelihood, a class of people for whom this House should have both sympathy and consideration.

The fishing industry should, as all Deputies will agree, be one of our most important and lucrative industries. Unfortunately, over the years, our rate of progress has been very slow and the industry here is not doing for this country what similar industries have done for other countries. The fishing industry in many countries is the backbone of the nation's industrial arm and, as a result of the magnificent development that has taken place over the years, we find in such countries many thousands of people employed in the fishing industry, an industry providing a living for thousands of families.

Fishery development here has been very slow. Successive Governments have tinkered with it. In a small way, I suppose each Government thought it was doing the best it possibly could but naturally there is still considerable room for improvement. We agree with the Minister for Agriculture when he says that it is the common desire on both sides of this House to ensure the success of the fishing industry, and I sincerely hope that in developing the industry in this country he will take into consideration and give every sympathy to those who have been working in the fishing industry for years—the inshore fishermen.

I was very glad to hear the Minister, in his statement here to-day, make the statement that the inshore fishermen would receive the protection of the Government. In saying that he was reiterating and repeating what he said when he introduced his Estimate away back on the 15th July, 1948. On that occasion he said, as reported in column 634, Volume 112:

"I will not let anyone start a big commercial trawling company based on this country because I believe it would destroy the livelihood of the inshore fishermen and, therefore, without in any way wanting to be draconian or precipitate or dictatorial I put the circumstances to the House and implicitly to the trawling company concerned, with no desire whatever unduly to interfere with the limitations of the individual interests. It is the policy of the Department to have no trawling company in competition with the inshore fishermen."

With that statement of the Minister's I entirely agree and it is for the purpose of saying a few words on behalf of the inshore fishermen in County Donegal that I intervene in this debate.

Last year during the herring fishing off the Donegal coast fishermen were alarmed at the arrival of two up-to-date, radar-equipped Scottish trawlers that took part in the inshore herring fishing. In the previous year we had a visit from one of those self-same trawlers, but we found out that it was not registered in this country and, on the arrival of a corvette, the trawler decamped. This year the trawlers came prepared. They had registered here in Dublin and were permitted, under the laws of this country, to take part in our fishing.

The Gaeltacht fishermen intensely resented the arrival of these trawlers and it is their contention that the ringing of herring in inshore waters would cause the breaking up of the shoals and make it impossible for the smaller boats to continue working. They feel that the livelihood of hundreds of families on the Donegal coast is tied up in the fishing industry and that the Government should not allow this type of fishing to continue.

In that part of the country and, indeed, all along our western coast, industries are few and far between, and it behoves us to ensure that any industries we have, such as the fishing industry, which is a fine old industry, should be preserved for the people of the area so long as they show any enthusiasm for taking part in it. It cannot be said, as far as Donegal is concerned, that they are lacking in enthusiasm or lazy in taking part in this fine industry in which their forefathers have taken part for hundreds of years.

We maintain in Donegal that if this type of inshore fishing is allowed to continue it will eventually mean the depopulation of the islands off the Donegal coast and further unemployment in an area in which unemployment has been rampant for many years and that it also means increased emigration from the Donegal Gaeltacht and the congested areas. The inshore fishermen, with their smaller boats, cannot compete with these up-to-date, radar equipped, modern craft. It is, I think, a pity that the Government should allow these modern craft to fish within ten or 20 yards of the shore; grounds that should be the preserves of the smaller boats.

This type of craft to which I have referred should be in a position to make a very good livelihood in waters further away from our coast than ten, 20 or 30 yards. There is room for both the trawlers and the smaller type of boat used by the inshore fishermen in Donegal.

After the fishing had concluded last year the fishermen on the Donegal coast invited the Parliamentary Secretary to Donegal in order that he might hear at first hand, their grievances. I was rather displeased that the Parliamentary Secretary could not see his way to visit them on that occasion because previous to that invitation he had visited most of the other areas around the coast. Due to the importance of the fishing industry one would have expected that he would have taken that opportunity of learning at first-hand the grievances and views of the fishermen in that part of the country.

As I have said, it is generally believed that this ringing of herring in inshore waters will eventually mean the death of the fishing industry as we know it in Donegal; that these trawlers do an enormous amount of damage and break up the shoals and the spawning beds and that it is only a matter of five or six years before the herring will have disappeared from that particular part of the coast. It is a serious problem and one to which I would like to draw the attention of the Parliamentary Secretary. If it is permitted this year, and it is generally believed that it will be, I am afraid the inshore fishermen will have to put up their small boats because it will be useless for them to engage in that type of fishing.

We had the experience last year of these two trawlers fishing in Gola Bay in Bunbeg Harbour while at the same time the officials of An Bord Iascaigh Mhara pointed out to the scores of inshore fishermen there that it would be useless for them to do any herring fishing for some time because the market was glutted. That was a serious state of affairs and it happened in Bunbeg. If it occurred last year following the arrival of these two trawlers what will be the position this year when we expect an avalanche of trawlers equipped for ringing herring on that part of the coast?

I agree that the catch by the trawlers was very successful and I read in the Irish Fishing Gazette of February 12th of this year the following paragraph:

"The two Scottish ringers, Arctic Moon and Elizmor, which had operated so successfully in mid-winter off the West Donegal coast, went back to their home ports about mid-January. It is understood they returned again to the West Donegal fishing grounds but remained only a short time. Estimates of the total value of their catches during their short period in Donegal range from £5,000 to £9,000. Their home port is The Maidens, Aryshire.”

If, as I have already stated, the Minister for Agriculture, and the Parliamentary Secretary take the view that that should continue it spells the end of inshore fishing in West Donegal. Even yet I feel the Parliamentary Secretary should intervene and in so far as I know the Minister for Agriculture himself has power to order boats registered here in Dublin to fish in certain grounds and not to fish in inshore waters. In view of the fact that the Minister has that power given to him under an Act passed by this House, I think he should exercise it in that regard. We have a duty to our people. We have a duty to the inshore fishermen who have engaged in this type of fishing for hundreds of years and who are bringing up their families on the rocky coasts of this country and on the islands off those coasts.

These are the people about whom we hear a great deal in this House from time to time and I feel sure the Government would be very slow to interfere with the livelihood of that particular class of people. As far as I can see, if this monopoly of trawlers owned by a small number of buyers is allowed to continue in this country it will mean the end of the herring fishing industry as we knew it in Donegal and elsewhere. This monopoly will take that type of fishing out of the hands of hundreds of families and place it carefully in the clutches of two or three people interested in that class of business and who at times show very meagre interest in the welfare of the fishermen who have helped them so considerably down through the years.

From time to time the Minister for Local Government makes a pronouncement on the Irish fishing industry. One would imagine that if any pronouncements are to be made on fishing they would be made either by the Minister for Agriculture or by his Parliamentary Secretary who has been appointed by this House to look after the industry. However, we were very glad to read in the Irish Independent of March 11th, 1955, that the Minister for Local Government, speaking to fishermen in West Donegal, said that the Minister for Industry and Commerce had consented to grant licences to reputable fish curers from England and Scotland to cure herrings in Ireland for export or otherwise. That was a very important statement which one would imagine would have been made by the Minister for Agriculture or by his Parliamentary Secretary.

However, we were very glad to read the statement. The Minister went further and said:

"Under an Act of 1934 the Minister for Industry and Commerce was permitted to grant licences to British curers to come into this country and cure herrings but despite repeated representations to various Ministers under Fianna Fáil, they always refused to issue such licences. Since the passing of this Act the limited number of Irish herring curers had been unable to cope with the supply of herrings during the glut periods as the market available to these curers was limited. Very much against their will the present Minister for Agriculture succeeded in persuading Bord Iascaigh Mhara to cure herrings on the Donegal coast."

I was very surprised to read that the previous Government had always refused to issue licences to curers who might be interested in coming into the country to cure herrings round our coast. I accordingly wrote to the Minister for Industry and Commerce and I got a reply, dated the 6th April last, as follows:

"There is no record in this Department of the receipt, in the past ten years or so, of any formal application for a new manufacture licence for the curing of herrings."

So either the Minister for Local Government must be misinformed or the Minister for Industry and Commerce had not the proper information before him when he sent me that reply. Since then the Minister for Local Government has again informed the fishermen of Donegal that this year we will have curers at practically all the chief ports and if that is so it is a statement we gladly welcome. It will be a great help to the industry and we await the winter to find out if the Minister's statement on this occasion is correct.

I do not think there is anything further I want to say on this Estimate but, in conclusion, I would again ask the Parliamentary Secretary to look into the matter of the inshore fishermen on the Donegal coast because it is the case of the fishermen on the Donegal coast to-day and the case of every other part of our coast to-morrow if this type of fishing is allowed to continue. It will eventually mean the breaking up of the inshore fishing as we know it and that will lead to unemployment, emigration and all the other evils that follow the break-up of any industry.

This is an industry that has been part and parcel of the Gaeltacht and the congested areas for centuries and it certainly should receive the special consideration of any Irish Government. It is true that if the trawlers are allowed to operate it will finish the inshore herring fishing and I want the Parliamentary Secretary to tell us what is intended to be done about it. The Parliamentary Secretary may say that our catches are bigger than they ever were before and that our production of herrings and so on has been higher than in any year since the State was established, but if the price we pay for higher herring production is a higher rate of unemployment and emigration I do not think it is worth the price. It will lead only to more empty houses in the Gaeltacht and to more uninhabited islands around our coast because the people who made livelihoods from this industry will have fled. I would, therefore, ask the Parliamentary Secretary to pay particular attention to a question that is of extreme importance to our fishermen and to practically everybody interested in the fishing industry.

Mr. Lindsay

I intervene in this debate briefly, first of all because I represent a maritime constituency in North Mayo and secondly, but not in order of merit, to congratulate the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Agriculture for his work over the past year in which I have taken, not alone in relation to my own constituency but to the whole of this country, a considerable interest. I would hesitate to say whether anybody else has ever put such courage, vigour and enthusiasm into a position in such a short time. I want to talk here on the mechanics of fishing, or at least on what I choose to call the mechanics of fishing—the things that are necessary to provide for the people engaged in fishing before any fish can be caught. Like Deputy Breslin, in that regard I want to say a particular word for what I would call the little men in the little boats.

In talking about the mechanics of fishing one must inevitably think of the boat in the first place. All around the coast of North Mayo, as indeed along the coast in all western constituencies, one finds the humble currach and the other little boats smaller than the trawler class. It is extremely important that adequate facilities would be provided by way of slips, piers and little harbours for the comfort and safety of the men in the little boats. I know, of course, that, for the currach, the sandy landing is probably best of all but there are times when weather conditions make that sort of thing impossible and the shelter of a slip or breakwater is absolutely essential to fishermen.

The fishing industry, in relation to the smaller man, is closely associated with his ordinary avocation of small farmer. A suitable mixture of the two industries and the man's application to them should not be impeded in any way by lack of adequate facilities.

I take it that the Department of Agriculture, from its Fisheries Branch, directs the general policy in regard to the provision of slips, breakwaters and harbours. In this matter there should be speed—speed in the allocation of the grant, speed in relation to all the machinery of State that is brought into operation in the allocation of the grant, the implementation of it and the spending of it in the particular place to which it has been allotted. In this respect, if I am right, the Department of Agriculture is involved, the Board of Works is involved and the Department of Finance is involved. Local government is involved in so far as the county council of the particular county for which some project is mooted is to be responsible, having paid its contribution, for future maintenance and upkeep of the project.

In my opinion, far too much time is wasted, and certainly has been wasted in the past, through lack of proper co-ordination between these various Departments under the general directive of the Fisheries Branch of the Department of Agriculture.

Yesterday, Question No. 36 on the Order Paper, in the name of Deputy Calleary, from the constituency of North Mayo, was a question directed to the Minister for Finance, as follows:—

"To ask the Minister for Finance whether there is any prospect of work beginning this year on the proposed improvements at Graughill pier, County Mayo, and, if not, if he will take steps to resolve the difficulties which are holding up the work."

An Ceann Comhairle

I do not wish to interrupt the Deputy, but I just want to ask is the Fisheries Branch responsible for slips and the maintenance of slips?

Mr. Lindsay

It is not responsible for slips and the maintenance of slips but responsible, in my respectful submission, for directing the general policy.

An Ceann Comhairle

There is no money in this Estimate for maintenance or construction of slips, as far as I know.

Mr. Lindsay

I quite agree and I will desist.

An Ceann Comhairle

In that case, clearly we are barking up the wrong tree. There is no use in speaking to the Parliamentary Secretary in respect of work that he has no money to carry out.

Mr. Lindsay

No, Sir, except to press the Parliamentary Secretary to speed up the policy of his Department that will be directed towards the expenditure of money from other Departments.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy understands that if there is no money in the Estimate for that purpose, the Parliamentary Secretary cannot do anything in the matter.

Mr. Lindsay

Very good. I accept the ruling of the Chair and will desist from making any remarks on that topic. In the consideration of the case of the smaller men along the coast and the facilities that are provided for them, the history of the case rather than what appears to be there at the present time is important. It is necessary to inquire what has happened in relation to a particular fishing area, to inquire what was done there in years gone by, what was the activity at that time, what was the reason for the decline in the activity and to consider the past history of the place in relation to present requirements. If that were done, I am quite satisfied that the policy of the Department of Agriculture, in its Fisheries Branch, would be much more successful in the speeding up of affairs in connection with fisheries and in making that Department generally more successful.

The provision of boats by the Department of Fisheries is a matter that agitates the mind of every fisherman and every group of fishermen along the coast. The provision of deposit-free boats for Gaeltacht areas is a matter in which great speed is required. The implementation of the Department's policy in that regard is a matter of urgency. I do not think that we should have to wait for that kind of boat as a new boat. I am told that second-hand boats are available in England or France and these boats could be used, after suitable inspection, carried out by a person competent to carry out the inspection. An Bord Iascaigh Mhara, under the direction of the Fisheries Branch, should be able to adjust themselves to that state of flexibility so as to come to the assistance of men or group of men along the coast who are prepared to spend money on a second-hand boat that has been guaranteed.

The fishing industry should be given a priority which it has failed to obtain from successive Governments. I am happy to say that, from the intervention of the Minister for Agriculture in this debate, one can envisage a state of affairs where that priority, if not already in existence, is looming its way to the top.

I should like to see the Fisheries Branch taking an even more active interest in the protection of our coasts. On the western coast and on other portions of the coast a new form of piracy is in operation on the part of what we will have to call, for the purpose of this debate, foreign trawlers, who dash in and out among the little men, bring in their heavy equipment, destroy beds and dash out again before anybody can do anything about it. In this respect I must say that in a few isolated cases in relation to my own constituency in Blacksod Bay, when I sought the help of the Minister and his Secretary adequate protection was given with great speed and given with excellent results.

The appointment of agents by An Bord Iascaigh Mhara at various centres along the coast is a matter which requires particular attention prior to their appointment and, in the matter of certain appointments at the moment, one that requires revision. The first essential, not alone in regard to fisheries but in regard to every aspect of life, when a man or woman is being chosen for a position, is that due regard should be had to qualifications and experience. In my opinion, the Fisheries Branch would do well to promote the institution, on their own initiative, of some sort of inter-departmental committee which would meet with a degree of frequency. In that way, the branch would have contact with other Departments with which its work is bound up. I believe that such a committee would render more effective the work of the Fisheries Branch by speeding up the necessary steps to enable it to carry out its programme.

In my survey, limited as it is, of the work of the branch over the year, I am quite satisfied that if the same tempo is kept up this year as was maintained last year by the present Parliamentary Secretary his term of office will be successful and we can definitely say that a man was selected for the job who was prepared to give a fair trial to the schemes initiated by his predecessor and who also sponsored schemes of his own to give the fishing industry the fillip so badly needed.

I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary to bear in mind, in particular, the little men and to direct his policy towards them, without excluding anybody else.

Mr. O'Hara

I was particularly interested in the speech made by Deputy Breslin. He struck rather a critical note and I feel it my duty to be critical also. I do not want it to be taken that I am casting any blame on the efforts of the present Parliamentary Secretary or those of his predecessor. However, it must be admitted that, in past years, somebody occupying the important position of Minister for Agriculture must have fallen down on his job because to-day the fishing industry is, as it has been for a number of years, as bad as it could possibly be.

Under British rule in this country it was possible to buy fish in rural areas —fish which was delivered by carts drawn by animals. To-day, with more modern methods of delivery, we cannot possibly procure fish in many of our rural areas. That is a very regrettable state of affairs. That is what happens in my own area and the same is true in many parts of Ireland. I travel quite a lot through the country and when I go into a hotel or a café and ask for fish—as I often do for tea or other meals—I am told that fish is not available. That bears out my contention that successive Governments have failed to put this industry on its feet. As a matter of fact, instead of having improved, the industry has deteriorated. I think there was never a proper appreciation by any Government in this country of the value which a successful fishing industry could be to our whole economy.

I agree with Deputy Breslin that fishing is a hazardous occupation. I also agree with him that, in the main, the people who engage in this industry both in my County of Mayo and in his County of Donegal are people with a tradition and a culture of their own. It is easy to be critical. Whenever I spoke on the debate on this Estimate on previous occasions I was critical for the reason that when we examine the whole position we must admit, to be quite honest and frank about it, that when you cannot procure fish in the rural areas of this island to-day— bearing in mind modern methods of transport, and so forth—there is something seriously wrong.

When Deputy Bartley took over the post which Deputy O. Flanagan now has, I wished him luck and I assured him that any help or assistance I could possibly give would be gladly given to him. I am satisfied that Deputy Bartley was quite enthusiastic and that he did his best: the same goes for the present Parliamentary Secretary. Despite that, however, it seems to me that successive Governments have not tackled the problem in a serious way. There has not been a real appreciation by any Government of the importance of this industry. If this industry were properly on its feet it would be of immense value to the economy of our country. In counties such as Donegal and Mayo quite a lot of people migrate and emigrate and for centuries the people there depend for part of their livelihood, at least, on fishing.

Slips and piers and harbours have been neglected for want of money. Native Governments have failed to provide the necessary money to put them in a proper state of repair. I have in mind Lacken Pier, among others, in North Mayo. Representations were made to the Department of Agriculture on numerous occasions about the repair of such piers but not one shilling of public money has been provided to put them in order. It was quite natural, in such circumstances, that the people engaged in the fishing industry got fed up with the position there and cleared across to foreign countries. It must be admitted now that, to a great extent, the fishing tradition is almost lost: that is true in my part of the country, in any case. I appeal to the Parliamentary Secretary and to the Minister for Agriculture to see to it that this neglect which has gone on down through the years will be corrected. I appeal to the Parliamentary Secretary during his term of office, to try to make up for lost time— because time has been lost. It is quite a difficult task and I do not underestimate its magnitude. Unless the Government undertake the task in a bold way and are prepared to expend plenty of money on it then progress cannot be made. There is no use in nibbling at this question. Surely it is a sad state of affairs to think that though there is plenty of fish in the sea around our shores there are people in many of our rural areas to-day who cannot buy fish. That is clear proof that we have fallen down on the job. I want it to be understood that I am not trying to blame the present Parliamentary Secretary or his predecessor when I say these things.

Foreign trawlers are coming to our shores and sometimes fish in our waters. I live a little bit inland myself but when I go 15 or 20 miles from my home I am told by most reliable people that this thing is going on. Surely if foreign trawlers find it worth their while to come hundreds of miles across the sea then it must pay them to do so. The foreign trawlers have colossal expenses in coming such long distances. They must pay their workers and they must pay their expenses. If, despite heavy expenses, it still pays them, I fail to see why this island cannot make the industry pay. I appeal to the Parliamentary Secretary to protect our smaller fishermen in such a way that these people will not be allowed to come in so close to our shores, in some cases, as Deputy Breslin pointed out, within 40 or 50 yards of the shore.

I have been told by fishermen, and I am personally satisfied, that in the matter of fishing gear, boats, nets and other equipment necessary, they are wholly unsuited for present-day conditions and present-day needs. I have also been told that one of the great difficulties in trying to procure such equipment is that the deposit demanded by the fishing authority is too high, is beyond the reach of most fishermen. That is a question that should be tackled seriously, particularly, as I have already said, in view of the fact that there are few men left in many parts of the country who are traditionally skilled in that work and who are prepared to undertake it. Unless we are to wipe out the industry altogether, it should be tackled as soon as possible. In the shops throughout the length and breadth of the country to-day, one sees tons of foreign fish imported from all over the world and would it not be better business for the Government to provide supplies of fresh fish from our own waters than to import it from the ends of the earth, thereby giving employment to people in countries far removed from us?

The Minister referred to Deputy Bartley's statement on the principle of taxing fishermen and farmers generally. I want to say with the greatest emphasis that I agree entirely with the viewpoint expressed by the Minister in connection with this whole matter. There should be an appreciation of the hazards and risks involved in the work of these people. They have to go out in many cases in the dead hours of night and stay long hours at sea. I remember not so long ago being in a place called Porturlin in County Mayo and being invited by some fishermen to go out on a salmon fishing expedition with them. Thinking of my own safety, I said I would not mind doing so if the weather was not stormy. I was told that it was not possible to catch salmon in that area unless the weather was stormy so I did not undertake to go out with them. Their boats were very small and the coastline is very rugged, and there is no doubt that it is a most hazardous occupation.

To suggest that a tax should be imposed on any part of their catch, even of 2d. per lb, is a wrong principle. Their work is seasonal and they have to put up with all classes of weather and risks. The same applies to the farmer's work, but as we are dealing with the Fisheries Estimate, I cannot elaborate on that. In other trades and professions there is trade unionism with groups of workers properly organised. They pay a fee to their organisation or society and get certain concessions and they are in a position to force their will, even on Governments. The poor fishermen cannot afford these things and they are, in the main, a disorganised body. I am glad, therefore, to hear the Minister say that he disapproves of the principle of taxing such people and I am wholeheartedly with him in that regard.

There are available to-day cold storage facilities. Electricity can be made available in most areas and fish can be stored by means of deep-freeze methods and so on and it is a strange thing to think that the industry is to-day far worse than it was 30 or 40 years ago. I appeal very earnestly to the Parliamentary Secretary to try to convince the Government of the importance of the industry. In my view, it should be second to agriculture. If he does that, and I sincerely hope he will, and does it successfully, it will have the effect of providing employment for hundreds and thousands of extra workers, and of providing that employment in areas where employment is badly needed.

With regard to fishing on our lakes and rivers—I have pressed this matter backstage quite a lot, so to speak, and for that matter the whole fishing industry—the Parliamentary Secretary is aware that I have been urging the Government to do something to improve the position. Like the Minister, I feel that if we set about improving the trout fishing in our rivers and lakes, it would bring far greater benefits to the country than any Tóstal ever brought. The idea of An Tóstal, in the first instance, as I understand it, was to extend the holiday period. The people who engage in fishing on our rivers and lakes are people who will turn out in any weather. They have no regard for rain or storm, if there are fish in the rivers or lakes. That being so, I feel that if we set about improving the quality of the fish in these rivers and lakes, it would bring far greater benefit than any Tóstal ever brought.

Tourism, it is generally appreciated, is a great industry, which has the effect of bringing many foreigners to our country and of selling the produce of our own land in the most profitable market in the world, namely, here at home on the tables of hotels and restaurants, but the Parliamentary Secretary will agree with me that precious little has been done in the past with regard to our lakes and rivers. I have referred before to many mountain lakes where the fish are locked up, due to the fact that the outfalls of the streams are choked with weeds and silt which restrict the movement of fish up or down. In these circumstances, there is too much in-breeding and the fish are daily growing smaller and smaller. Visitors no longer bother to fish in many lakes which they fished 15 or 25 years ago because the trout are only an inch or half an inch long. Anything the Parliamentary Secretary can do to improve the freshwater lakes and rivers will bring the greatest possible benefit imaginable from the point of view of tourism to this country.

Mr. J. Brennan

I am anxious to intervene because, like every other speaker, I appreciate the importance of the industry, especially in Donegal. The Minister has complimented this side of the House on approaching the debate dispassionately and he deprecated any propaganda being made out of the fishing industry. I thoroughly agree with him in that attitude. Perhaps it was due to the fact that we, when in Government, were dependent on a slender majority in the past, but every single effort made by our Parliamentary Secretary, who was conscientiously and genuinely interested in this industry, was made the object of frustration by misrepresentation throughout the country. A good deal of unjust and unnecessary propaganda was made which was not always calculated to improve the fishing industry. We had rather a lot of that propaganda in Donegal.

I agree with the Minister that the co-operation of everybody is necessary to give the fishing industry the impetus, the encouragement and the stability which may bring it eventually to a status where it will enjoy the place it should have in the economy of the nation.

Experiments will have to be tried. Experiments are very susceptible to propaganda and to criticism, if someone wants to use them in that way. We must explore any avenue that holds out a hope of furthering the industry. We must be prepared to try out experiments and give them every possible chance to succeed. We have had too many pious platitudes and on the other hand too much unjust criticism, instead of a genuine effort to improve the industry. I welcome any effort by anyone to make experiments to improve the industry. That improvement is fraught with many problems—perhaps none of them insurmountable.

Speaking in this debate three or four years ago, I summarised the difficulties of the industry by pointing out that we would have to get as many people as possible employed in it on a decent standard of living and, secondly, that the industry should provide a very essential and wholesome food for the nation. To achieve these two objectives is the target of any Parliamentary Secretary in taking over the post and it is no small or simple undertaking. He requires the full co-operation of every section in the House if he is to succeed even in a small measure in getting some improvement.

To employ more fishermen means taking more fish and taking more fish means finding a market for them. Therefore, money spent on boats, gear and landing facilities and secondly, in the distribution of fish, is money well spent. We have been too accustomed in the past to haphazard methods, where to-day there was a glut and no sale and to-morrow a scarcity and high prices. It is by our efforts to overcome that unbalanced situation that we will measure the success of our attempts. We are moving in the right direction. We have undertaken the initial steps towards overcoming that unbalanced situation, but we have a long way to go yet. The establishment of quick freeze plants, fish meal plants and kippering stations are definitely moves in the right direction. That is the only direction in which we can move if we are to overcome that unbalanced situation of the glut and the scarcity which leaves the market so irregular and so erratic and leaves the industry not worth one's while taking part in.

More will have to be done in distribution. Deputy O'Hara has spoken about the thing we all experience on going into a hotel in the midlands or sometimes even on the coast—finding there is no fish on the menu. That is not their fault, they cannot afford to have fish on the menu as a permanent dish, as it may not be available when a customer asks for it. It is only by maintaining continuity of supplies that we can develop a market with a regular demand, even to the most inland counties and provincial towns. That is what I advocated before and I think everyone agrees with the proposal. I think we should try to have better distribution, whereby the proper type of van man would make regular trips to particular areas.

Why could we not have a service on the road such as some of the sausage manufacturers in Dublin have? Could we not attempt a distribution service like the bakeries or the purveyors of the thousand and one other perishable commodities that are brought to the homes of every individual in the mornings? It is not easy to do that. Some of these things are more easily supplied in continuity, but now that we have gone on the way to a greater number of better class boats capable of going into deeper waters and landing the fish on most occasions, now that we have gone a long way towards a more regular supply, our next step is to give more regular distribution.

There are other things, too, which would help to drain off the glut if and when it comes. The small craft which are used only in fair weather are very often the cause of the glut on the market. When fish are plentiful they all go fishing if the weather is suitable and as a result you have huge landings at the same time. We had the unusual experience in Donegal recently of fish having to be dumped. That is a thing not likely to recur often. It was sad to see so many thousand of fish having to go literally down the drain. That should not happen. Where there is a fishmeal plant within reach it should act as a safety valve whenever the price of fish is uneconomic. We should do anything rather than have to dump or discard the catch, as happened frequently in years gone by.

We have now a pilot fishmeal plant at Killybegs, which has at least justified its existence. It has demonstrated that it is one very definite way of utilising fish, particularly at a time when the supplies overcome the demand. Even though the price may not be economic, it is a safety valve which prevents the price from dropping too low and it is an outlet in the last extreme.

The Parliamentary Secretary said that the proper plant to put up was a plant which would cost £60,000 using 50 tons a day with five tons turning out one ton of fishmeal. I could very easily see a plant of that kind operating the 60 days, which is the minimum it would be expected to work. The officials of the Department and of Bord Iascaigh Mhara are well aware of the potential supply of sprats in Donegal which are untouched at the moment because there is actually no market for them except when they are taken in small carts round the country.

During the war when the Scandinavian countries were unable to supply the British market the Donegal sprats —they are known to us as Inver sprats because that is where they are fished —became a most profitable industry. On that occasion British canners and others in Britain purchased them. It gave employment to large numbers in packing, distribution and transport. The British canners were prepared to take any amount and the quantity exported was colossal at the time. That industry is dormant now. These sprats would be eminently suited for two things—canning and fishmeal. They are not very suitable for fishmeal owing to their high oil content, but I believe that can be overcome by having a percentage of prime fish offals mixed with them and the drying process brings them to a state where they can be more successfully used for fishmeal.

We in Donegal hope—and we trust we are not thinking in vain—that the Parliamentary Secretary, An Bord Iascaigh Mhara and all concerned with the fishery industry will appreciate the great potential now lying dormant and that they will take the initiative in providing the necessary plant that will be capable of taking 50 tons per day. We guarantee to give it to them so that that particular branch of the industry which is peculiar to Donegal will not lie much longer dormant.

I was dealing with the question of distribution. The quick-freeze system has gone a long way towards conserving supplies and enables the catches to be held over and released to the market as they are required. That system should be developed. A road transport service should be provided with a modern type of insulated van. That would bring the fish packed in cellophane, in a form acceptable to everybody. Until we have reached that stage, we cannot say we have fully developed the fishing industry. I think we are moving in that direction. There will be many criticisms. They will be expressed in this House but they are not always expressed here. We find criticism coming from people who organise in little groups and talk very glibly about the Government doing nothing for the industry, but, if they were in the same position as the Parliamentary Secretary they would find themselves unable to do anything more or, perhaps, not as much as Parliamentary Secretaries have done in the past. The best hurlers are always on the ditch. It is very easy to criticise from outside, but when one is placed in the position of doing something it is not so easy.

I should like to refer to landing places in Donegal. Along the rugged coast of our county there is hardly a nook where you would not find some landing place or slip.

An Ceann Comhairle

There is no money in the Estimate for slips.

Mr. J. Brennan

You will agree, Sir, that this matter concerns the Department of Fisheries. Let me discuss the matter on a broader basis.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy is talking about landing places and slips but there is no money in this Estimate to provide slips.

Mr. J. Brennan

I want to refer to the matter in a general way. I want to condemn emphatically the system whereby the responsibility for such slips and landing places is divided among a diversity of interests. In one case it is the county council. In another it is the Board of Works and in yet another it is the Department of Agriculture. If we could consolidate all these interests and have one general controlling authority to which we could go and say: "I want this particular thing attended to; I want a report on this and I want to know if it is worthy of being attended to," we would have achieved something very important. Other than that general reference I am not going to refer to the matter further.

With regard to the purchase of the three German boats, I should like to say this in defence of Deputy Bartley. I agreed with him at the time. If we reach the stage where we will have continuity of supplies to meet a growing market at home, we must have some boats that will be able to go to sea and into deeper waters at any time. If a start was made for the purpose of initiating that arm of the industry it was not before its time. I cannot visualise the industry reaching such a stage of perfection without having some boats capable of going into deeper water. For that reason the purchase of those three boats was a step in the right direction. I believe the expenditure at the time will be more than justified.

With regard to improved boating facilities, we saw some 17 or 20 large boats in Killybegs the other day. Everybody welcomes the development of our fishing industry, but we are inclined to forget that we still have with us the inshore fisherman with a small bit of land who goes to sea whenever the conditions are favourable. We depended on that type of fisherman in the past and we hope he is not being forgotten. I am afraid we are inclined to neglect the inshore man with a small craft. He has a complaint with regard to the larger boats. He feels that they should be kept off our shores for some distance and that he should at least have an undisturbed portion of water to himself. These other boats capable of going far out should at least leave the inshore fishing to the small craft.

Not infrequently the inshore fisherman loses his gear as a result of these larger boats driving over his lines. Very seldom is he able to prove what boat did it and he has to bear the loss himself. The day of that type of fisherman is not past. Many people may say it is passing but the fact is that it will always remain with us. Although the numbers may diminish and emigration may take the crews abroad, we will always have that type of fisherman with us—the man with a bit of land who will go out to sea to fish in a small boat. Many of them fish for lobster as well. I think we should not lose sight of the fact that these men require attention.

Salmon fishing is a separate item and I will make a statement in this House which might hardly be thought credible but is nevertheless a fact. If many of the salmon fishermen along the Donegal coast were to fish legally they would not be able to buy butter for their bread and very often, even with their own method of fishing, they are not able to do that. I am afraid this year is one of the years of their greatest failures. It may seem queer to say that the particular method of fishing by which they use a bag net and a "dull" is held to be using a fixed engine and is an illegal form of fishing. I am a member of a board of conservators and it is the duty of the board to prosecute them and this is often done. Yet, if they did not use that method, they might as well—to use a local phrase—be knotting straws. It is a technical matter, the difference between tweedledum and tweedledee but this method could not be used if they were compelled to fish according to the regulations laid down by the Fisheries Act and imposed by the boards of conservators. I think the Fisheries Section and An Bord Iascaigh Mhara and all concerned should examine the question of legalising that type of inshore fishing.

The number of salmon likely to be taken is negligible. It is not likely to make serious inroads on our supplies of salmon because, as we all know, the conservancy of salmon must take place in the upper reaches of our rivers. The damage done in the bay by the fisherman, who is constantly watched and controlled, is negligible. These fishermen, when a crew is fishing, must have a man to watch the fish passing up, and also have a man ashore watching for the bailiff. Every single crew in my area employs that system and they are occasionally prosecuted. It is merely a technical matter with regard to the means adopted. I would be very pleased if it were legalised because, as the situation stands, no other method will be used and if they are compelled to keep to the system which the regulations lay down they will cease to fish because it would be absolutely no use. Other areas have other means, and they do not all resort to the same methods, but the fact remains that that is the method popular round the Donegal coast and it is an illegal method of fishing. It has been carried on since I remember and will be to the end. Why not legalise it?

We are to have some boats—free issues—for the Gaeltacht, and I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will not decide to allocate those boats on a poltical basis. We do not want him to give one to every Fianna Fáil cumann nor to every branch of Fine Gael, but there are good, hard-working honest fishermen who, I hope will be treated on their merits. Their records are well known and among them are men who are most likely to make a success of the boats when these are issued to them. I hope these issues will be given on merit to the applicants.

Somebody spoke about the question of foreign trawlers poaching in our waters. It is always one of the hardy annuals discussed here, and I think while responsibility for keeping off these trawlers lies with the Department of Defence, the control is rather far removed from fisheries. I would like to see the Fisheries Section able to order the defence of our shores itself. That view may not be shared by anyone else but I think dual control makes for a lot of lost time and I would prefer that the coastal protection patrol boats would be established under the Fisheries Section of the Department. I think it would make for expedition and better results generally.

I believe that while different views may be epressed as to the rate of our progress we are moving in the right direction. Critics there will be and plenty at all times, and all the criticism will not be founded on reasons of genuine interest in the industry. No matter what Parliamentary Secretary may initiate a scheme, so long as it is a worthwhile effort, I think it is entitled to a fair trial and let us all co-operate to give it every possible assistance. There are far too many things involved in this industry to allow it to be entirely the plaything of politicians. There is the food that is taken from the sea—it is most productive in that respect—there is the employment that accrues from the pursuit of that food, the actual fishing, transport, dealing and all the various hands that are employed. All these combined make it a most important industry.

I think the number of hands could be multiplied tenfold if we had reached our proper stage of improvement in regard to fisheries. I believe we will yet reach that stage. There will always be that diversity of opinion about private enterprise and any State-sponsored body that comes in to take control but nobody can expect private enterprise to do the things that An Bord Iascaigh Mhara is doing now. For that reason, while I have frequently heard the arguments on the private side of the industry—that they had to buy fish against a corporation that was subsidised by the taxpayers' money and so on—and while they may have arguments in that direction, the fact remains that we must have a State-sponsored corporation to take over such an important industry where a huge outlay of money is involved if the industry is to be developed. We could not possibly expect private enterprise to develop the industry and put all the capital into it that would be required in order to develop it in that way.

For that reason, it is essential that a State-sponsored corporation such as An Bord Iascaigh Mhara should exist to held the industry, while at the same time leaving ample room for private enterprise without undue competition. I think that, as things are going, they are working reasonably well. We hope, at least, that we are moving in the right direction, but we would like to see the tempo increased and the rate of progress accelerated.

Dr. Esmonde

The fishing industry is an important branch of our economy and, as other Deputies have stated, everything possible should be done to improve our fisheries. We accept the fact that there are certain difficulties in the way. To start with, the fishing fleets of our neighbouring countries are, to a large extent, subsidised. They provide the personnel for those nations in times of danger whereby they can service their navies, and they receive from their Governments big subsidies which enable them to provide fish for the public in their countries very much easier than we are able to do here.

I feel that, so far as our fisheries are concerned, there are certain factors in the way which could, by co-operation all round, be removed. We here are faced with three principal difficulties. The first is that we have never had in this country a proper system for the distribution of fish. The practice has grown up that it is only in our big centres of population that fish can be readily obtained by our consumers. In the main, our fish catches are transported to Dublin, and the principal market that exists for them is in the capital city, and practically nowhere else because of the fact that other parts of the country are not serviced with supplies of fish as they should be. I know that there are many difficulties in that respect, but I feel that the present position could be improved. First of all, something could be done to increase the demand for fish. The average person living in rural Ireland has given up thinking of fish for the simple reason that he can never get it.

I think that, if the Department of Fisheries were to encourage people, by advertisements and possibly through means of a sponsored programme on Radio Eireann to be more fish minded, itself would help to develop a market for the consumption of fish. We have a long way to go before we can say that we have reached our full level of consumption.

I welcome very much the statement made to-day by the Minister for Agriculture as an earnest of his interests that he would be prepared to start processing factories for the raw material of fish even though we had not at home a sufficient supply of fish ourselves to service them. I feel that until such time as we can have, first of all, a guarantee that our fishermen, no matter what they may catch, may be able to dispose of it, even at a reduced price, and until such time as we can make our people fish-minded, we will have to confess that we are not making much of an advance along the line on which we would all like to go.

Another thing that is militating greatly against us in the fishery arena is the modernisation of fisheries in other countries with which we here have not kept in line. Fishermen are tending towards the use of larger craft than heretofore. It has been my experience in my own constituency of Wexford, where we have a great many fishermen, that they have been prevented from going in for a better type of craft by the fact that there are no deep water anchorages available to them between Dublin and Waterford. I think that is the thing that limits private enterprise among fishermen. I know that many of these fishermen would go in for larger boats if suitable State, anchorages were made available to them. I am aware that the Parliamentary Secretary and the officials of his Department made a survey of that area, and that it is intended at some time—at least I hope it is intended—to make better harbour provision for our fishermen whom we all want to encourage. If they were able to have larger boats it would place them on a higher plane of efficiency.

There can be no question but that our shores are being considerably poached. The international position that exists at the moment in the fishing arena is this: The Icelandic Government depends almost entirely on its exports of fish. These are as high as 98 per cent. That Government has recently extended its territorial limits from three to six miles. That has been the cause of an international dispute which actually came before the the Committee of the Council of Europe recently. It is well known that the North Sea and many other parts of the coast of England have been fished to such an extent that there is a terrific dearth of fish there now. The Icelandic Government, appreciating that, extended its territorial limits. As its coasts see a lot of foreign trawlers about, the natural inference is that they being excluded they will turn and poach our shores to a greater extent than they have done heretofore.

I feel that considerable assistance could be given to our Irish fisheries if we had better protection. I have never been satisfied that the corvettes of our navy are suitable for fishery protection. For one thing, we have few harbours into which they can get. I feel that if, perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary, who had great initiative and drive and who, I know, has put a lot of work into the administration of his Department since he took it over, could get the co-operation of the Department of Defence so that if it cannot supply him with a more suitable type of craft it would place the service of its Air Force at his disposal, it would, I think, be an effective way of checking the operations of the marauders who come to our shores. The Air Force would be able to notify the corvettes to come up and deal with these marauders. It is well known that these foreign trawlers spend days on end here. They know that one of the corvettes may be laid up for refitting, and that, as regards the other two, that one is usually in Dún Laoghaire and the other in Cobh. In that situation, they are able to carry on with their poaching as much as they please. I think that if there was the co-operation which I am urging between the Departments concerned a big improvement could be brought about.

As regards the German trawlers, it is true, of course, that we in the Fine Gael party, criticised the purchase of them and justifiably so. We did so, in the first instance, because we believed that their purchase was injudicious. I think that is proved by the fact that, when the three trawlers were taken over, one broke down at sea and had to be laid up in dock for an extended period for a refit. In my opinion, the person who bought these trawlers had not sufficient technical experience to know if they were seaworthy, or whether they were value for the money that was paid for them.

Mr. Bartley

Does the Deputy know what the weather was like when they were bought?

Dr. Esmonde

I know all about the weather. Surely, the Deputy is not suggesting that if you buy a ship from a foreign Government and it gets into a rough sea, it is normal that it should break down. Was not that proof that there was something wrong? Craft purchased by one Government from another should surely have been seaworthy.

Mr. Bartley

Does the Deputy not know that at that time in many other ports craft had been battered in a far worse way?

Dr. Esmonde

The point I am making is this, that the Deputy, when he was Parliamentary Secretary, purchased trawlers which were considered to be suitable trawlers for the purpose of fishing on the high seas. But when these three trawlers were purchased one broke down at sea, and had to be put in dock for a considerable period afterwards for repairs. Furthermore, the other two have spent an extended period in the docks.

Mr. Bartley

For the purpose of Lloyd's classification. I think that should be brought into it. It is unfair to leave it out.

Dr. Esmonde

Even accepting the fact that the other two trawlers were fit and seaworthy, does there not seem to be something wrong if one of them broke down and had to go into dock?

Mr. Bartley

What about all the other boats that were battered in the high seas by the same weather?

Dr. Esmonde

The fact that they did not even get to their port of destination safely is sufficient proof that what I am saying is true. The other reason why we object is simply this: We believe in private enterprise here and the State was encroaching in this arena. I believe that had it not been for the heavy criticism that was levelled at the then Parliamentary Secretary, Deputy Bartley, he would have purchased more of these craft, and that the intention of his Government was to a large extent to try to take over and control fishing.

Mr. Bartley

The Deputy knows that is not true.

Dr. Esmonde

We in Fine Gael do not believe in that and for that reason we opposed it.

Mr. J. Flynn

I appreciate the Government's decision to establish an ice plant in Cahirciveen. I would like to mention a problem in connection with the mussel plant at Cromane, County Kerry. Through nobody's fault, the position at the moment is not very satisfactory. The Parliamentary Secretary himself was down there some time ago and saw how the scheme was working out. Perhaps the Government might consider having some new undertaking there for the benefit of fishermen in that district, for instance, a fishmeal plant.

As regards the mussel plant, the position is unsatisfactory because the mussels were to be purified and exported by the Fisheries Board, an arrangement which the local fishermen were not prepared to accept. The Fisheries Association gave them the option of working the plant themselves and it is now evident to everybody that that was not a success. It could not be a success in the way it was handled. This is a scheme which had great possibilities at one time and could have been of great service to the fishermen there. It would be regrettable if the position were allowed to deteriorate any further and I would, therefore, ask the Parliamentary Secretary to review the position as a matter of urgency.

There is another matter in connection with that district to which I wish to draw attention. At one time the Minister concerned allocated a grant for the removal of rock from the salmon fishing ground further up the coast, and that scheme went through. There is another small section of the coast where, because of obstruction by rocks, the fishermen find it very difficult to haul in their nets. In the first case to which I have referred the county council contributed the amount specified by the Department of Fisheries and the Board of Works and in this instance I am sure an arrangement could also be made. In conclusion, I wish to thank the Parliamentary Secretary for the interest he has taken in the work done in Kerry and I hope he will find it possible to examine this question of the Cromane mussel plant.

Mr. O'Leary

I have been requested to ask the Parliamentary Secretary and his Department to provide fishery protection around the coast of Wexford, at Kilmore and other places used by the fishermen. The foreign trawlers come inside the three mile limit and although the corvette may be in the vicinity, it is so large that before it approaches the trawlers are gone outside again, having taken the fish and damaged the local fishermen's gear. That happens very often in that area.

Another matter I have been asked to bring before the notice of the Parliamentary Secretary is in regard to the fishermen on the Slaney. Right back in 1932, when Fianna Fáil came into power, the then Minister for Agriculture, Deputy Dr. Ryan, promised the fishermen on the Ferrycarrig and on the Slaney that they would be allowed out earlier than the 1st April. That Government went by and the last inter-Party Government went by, and these fishermen are still held up until the 1st April. These fishermen of whom I speak are small farmers who live during the fishing season solely from fishing. The remainder of them come to Dublin to work in power stations and return when the fishing season commences. It has been proved that the fish are running earlier. The oldest fishermen whom a few of us met—Sir John Esmonde, the late Nick Corish and myself—told us that the fish were running earlier and that if the fishermen were allowed to go out a month earlier it would make all the difference.

I have here the Enniscorthy Guardian and I want to bring before the Parliamentary Secretary's notice the report of a meeting of the Wexford Board of Fishery Conservators. These people want to increase the licences both on the rod and on the net fishermen. I ask the Parliamentary Secretary to resist that. If these people want to increase the rod fishermen, let them increase the licence in the case of the people who are coming here from England and the North of Ireland to enjoy themselves on the banks of the Slaney; let them pay for their pleasure but do not mulct the local men who are solely dependent on their fishing for a livelihood.

Mr. O. Flanagan

Will the Deputy give me that paper?

Mr. O'Leary

I will. In another section of it there is a report of a resolution which was forwarded by the Limerick board asking the Minister for Agriculture to introduce legislation to increase the licence duties on both rods and on nets. I hope that will not happen. At the moment if one goes down to the Slaney and out to Ferrycarrig one will see there the fishermen sitting on the bridge watching for the swim of the salmon. Almost all the fishing is finished there; if the men were allowed to start earlier and the season closed earlier, it would be an advantage to them. In fact, the season has closed long ago because the men are getting nothing. That is a great hardship on these people. Up the river, salmon killed by visitors are being sent by plane from Collinstown to their friends in London. Those people are allowed to start fishing a month earlier than the local fisherman.

That is a long-standing grievance and it is hoped, now that Deputy O. Flanagan is Parliamentary Secretary, that some change will be made. I want to take this opportunity of congratulating him on his position. He is an active young man. He has been down around South Wexford and along the coast, meeting the people, and finding out for himself conditions at first hand. That is what every Parliamentary Secretary should do. He would then get on the spot the complaints the local representatives get and could subsequently hammer out some satisfactory agreement to meet those complaints. If that is done, a long-standing grievance of the fishermen on the Slaney will be relieved.

I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will give these few remarks of mine his earnest consideration. The paper to which I have referred points out that these fishermen are very poor and, according to the report, the amount killed this year was 2,968 fish on the Slaney. A lot of families have to be provided for out of that small number of fish. The season only lasts a few weeks. Something will have to be done. It is not right that certain people should be allowed to set themselves up as a board of conservators, allowing no one to go on the banks of the river, and in certain places, one cannot go on the banks of the Slaney. These are the people who are advocating an increase in both rod and net licences. These are well-to-do people and, if they want to pay more, let them be charged more. Surely the position of the poor fishermen who have to exist more or less out of the few salmon they get should receive consideration. I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will give those men every consideration. Above all, I appeal to him to give them an earlier opening.

Mr. Palmer

When the present Parliamentary Secretary was put in charge of fisheries he visited Kerry to find out how everything was going on there. His visit first was to Cromane where there is a mussel station. The local fishermen have now taken over that station for themselves. They have told me they have to pay 2/6 per barrel, or per bag, I think they call it, for sterilising and they have asked me to ask the Parliamentary Secretary if he would kindly reduce that to 1/6 or 1/-.

The fishermen there, especially the salmon fishermen, are deeply grateful to the Parliamentary Secretary for having done away with the 2d. per lb. on salmon for export. That has done a great deal of good.

I am afraid the time has come when a complete alteration must take place if we are to develop fisheries in this country. At one time the fishing industry was regarded as being second to that of agriculture. At the present moment we cannot find fishermen to do the work but, in spite of all that has been said, I believe that if our inshore and deep sea fishermen have the proper boats and the proper equipment we will get a sufficient number to carry on the work.

I have one complaint to make. It refers to North Kerry, but it also affects us in South Kerry. A certain lady has got a permit for a French trawler to fish lobsters in Castlegregory. I do not know exactly how she got that permit. It may be thought that it only affects the fishermen in Dingle, but it also affects us because we have some very good lobster fishermen in our area. I am led to believe that she got the licence or permit until 1st August. I am also led to believe that she did not operate under the conditions specified. I do not know who gave this permit, but it was given. I can only hope now that, if this lady asks for a renewal of the permit, the conditions under which she has worked will be fully investigated and that in future no such licences or permits will be issued.

Mr. O. Flanagan

In view of the volume of work which has to be undertaken by the House for the remainder of this afternoon and the long sitting that is expected to-morrow, I do not propose to make any statement of great length, beyond paying a tribute to the speakers on the Opposition Benches who have, in my opinion, made very reasonable speeches.

The statement made by Deputy Bartley contained some very constructive ideas and I feel that it is only right and proper that I should pay tribute to the manner in which he spoke both yesterday and to-day. With regard to the points raised by the Deputies, I want to give them an assurance now that every point raised during the debate will be carefully examined, very closely investigated and will receive the fullest possible consideration.

During the year I had the honour of visiting many of the fishing centres both on the west coast, the south coast and the east coast. I met a number of development associations and was approached by deputations from the fishermen in most districts. On the occasion of the visit to Killybegs, I undertook that I would have, as soon as possible, the fishmeal plant completed and the laboratory provided in that area. It can now be seen that provision is made for these matters in this Estimate and I can assure the House that no time will be lost in carrying out this work.

In so far as the Cahirciveen project is concerned, on the occasion of my visit to that district, very strong representations were made to me to lose no time in having the fish handling premises at Cahirciveen completed. It was, indeed, as the result of the representations made to me that the board has now decided to have this work completed. I can assure Deputy Flynn that every one of the representations that have been made to me with regard to Cromane will receive the most sympathetic consideration of the officials of the Department, of the Minister and of myself.

When I visited Cromane I was accompanied by the Deputies of the constituency; Deputy Flynn was there and I asked if any fisherman had any reasons or any proposals to make and that I would listen attentively to everything said. I said I was very anxious to hear any grievance that the fishermen might have and that I would do what I could to comply with their wishes. I was given an assurance that everything was running very smoothly and that there was no grievance of any kind. If there was a grievance, or if any grievances have now arisen, I want to assure Deputy Flynn and the fishermen associated with the project that the knob of my office door is in their hands. I am always prepared to meet and consult with the fishermen and if there is anything I can do to solve their problems that will be done.

I do not intend to deal very fully with the question of the salmon levy as I feel that the Minister has covered that ground fully. Although Deputy Bartley has stated that no representations were ever made to him, from any of the interested parties, that the salmon levy was a burden on them I cannot say that that has been the case so far as I am concerned. On the occasion of my first visit to County Kerry I was approached, even at Cromane, with a view to having the levy removed. Representations were again made to me in Cork, and further representations were made from Donegal, I think from the Teeling district. As a matter of fact the records of the Department show that, from the time I took office, I had many communications on the matter by way of letter and otherwise. I met a deputation at Baltimore, in Cork, in which the view was placed before me that one of the principal grievances of the fishermen was the question of the salmon levy and they asked that I consider having it abolished. I feel that the levy should never have been there and I am glad that it was abolished.

I am very glad that we should have such a favourable report to make with regard to the activities in the boatyards. I visited Meevagh, and Baltimore, and the boatyard of Messrs. Tyrell and Sons at Arklow recently, and it gave me great pleasure to discover that all the boatyards in this country are working overtime; that there is a record number employed at boat building and that there are more apprentices now to carry on the boat-building industry. It is a welcome change because, in the week in which I took office, I was approached by a certain concern to say that they had no orders in hand and that, in Arklow, men were about to lose their jobs. A welcome change has taken place in the incidence of employment in the boat-building trade and I hope and trust that that change will continue.

I do not wish to say very much more except to express my thanks to Deputies for their co-operation and to assure them that the points they have raised will be very sympathetically considered.

Mr. Bartley

Will the Parliamentary Secretary tell us what the price of salmon was during the 1954 season as compared with the 1953 season?

Mr. O. Flanagan

There was a slight drop I know from one season to another but I cannot actually tell the Deputy what it was. I will find out and let him know.

Mr. Bartley

When the Parliamentary Secretary is getting that information he might be able to find out how the export price during 1954 compared with the export price during 1953.

Mr. O. Flanagan

I will find out.

Mr. Bartley

There is just one other question. I pointed out that I had not the advantage of scanning the Parliamentary Secretary's statement but the question I wish to raise is about the contribution to the salmon research station of £1,000. There is another contribution with regard to salmon stock of £300. Can the Parliamentary Secretary tell us what is proposed to be done under each of these headings?

Mr. Dillon

It is extremely difficult to give an exact description under the two headings but I can say that it impinges in no way on the authority or jurisdiction of boards of conservators. It is a long term research programme and enters a field of knowledge not studied anywhere else in the world—that is the life history and environmental condition of salmon in Irish rivers in order to state what means might be employed to improve the head of salmon in our rivers. It is purely a programme of research. It would be true to say that, in so far as people might expect an early result in this field of research, no such early returns can be anticipated. It is purely a research job.

Mr. Bartley

Has the personnel of the trust been selected?

Mr. Dillon

Yes. I think Mr. Rushe represents the Government and there is also Dr. Went who is technical adviser to the Fisheries Section of the Department of Agriculture. The Deputy can take it it is an enterprise of pure research and nothing else.

An Ceann Comhairle

There was a motion to refer this Estimate back, in the name of Deputy Bartley.

Mr. Bartley

In view of the tone of the debate, while I am not satisfied that sufficient money is made available for the protection of our fisheries, I will not force the House to a vote.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

Vote put and agreed to.