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.