Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 22 Feb 1956

Vol. 154 No. 5

Private Members' Business. - Preservation of Game Birds—Motion (Resumed).

Debate resumed on the following motion:—

That, with a view to preserving the stock of game birds and to prevent poaching, Dáil Éireann is of opinion:

(a) that the sale or purchase of all game birds and wild fowl should be prohibited for a period of 21 days after the opening day of the appropriate shooting season;

(b) that the open season in respect of the following birds should be:

(1) wild duck, geese or plover — 1st September to 12th February;

(2) partridge — 1st November to 30th November;

(3) pheasant—1st November to 31st January;

(c) that, in addition to any other penalty which may be imposed, there should attach to a conviction for the offence of shooting or taking any game out of season, an obligatory suspension of the gun licence of the offender for a minimum period of 12 months, the offender to have the right, after the expiration of three months after conviction, to apply to the court for the removal of the suspension, and

(d) that, in addition to any other penalty which may be imposed, there should attach to the conviction of the holder of a game dealer's licence for the offence of purchasing any game birds or wild fowl out of season an obligatory suspension of such licence for a minimum period of six months.

Mr. Donegan

Last week, when moving this motion, I dealt with what I might term the mechanical features of the Bill — the measures that were intended to stop professional poaching and to propagate game in this country. Accordingly, to-night I should like to deal with the importance of the motion. The first thing to be remembered is that the shooting of game and the whole sport of shooting generally is a very important factor in the tourist industry in this country. A European nobleman who was making a study of game on the Continent of Europe arrived in Ireland and left some three weeks later, stating that the only shooting we had was snipe shooting. With that I agree. We have some of the finest shooting country on the Continent of Europe. In Scotland, for example, people pay fabulous sums to come and shoot for a week, a fortnight or three weeks. I hold no brief for that type of person, but it is a feature of our tourist industry and one which should not be neglected.

I myself tend to think that this motion is more important, inasmuch as it looks after a bit of shooting for the decent fellow down the country, whether he is a farmer's son with a five shilling licence or somebody else with a game licence. That may be an extraordinary thing to say, but I am not ashamed to stand up in Dáil Éireann and say it. Provided always that the individual shoots his game during season and in a proper manner, I have not the slightest objection to a farmer's son going out with a five shilling licence and having a shot on a Sunday, holiday of obligation or any other day, if he has the time. It would not cost me a thought.

This motion does not seek to hamper him any more than he is hampered already. The motion seeks to deal with the taking of game out of season. Whether the Minister would like to give us all that is enshrined in this motion — and I think he should — it would be wise for him to reflect on the fact that every year he collects approximately £80,000 from game licences and all that is gained by the shooter in this country from the collection of this money is the protection which the Civic Guards give. It is a physical impossibility for the Civic Guards to protect the shooting grounds of Ireland in the week before the season, or in the first week of the season, when the damage is done, and with the tendency to close small Civic Guard stations, that position will be worsened. It is impossible for one Guard in a country station to leave behind him the barrack orderly, go out on his bicycle and cover perhaps 20, 30 or 40 square miles of ground in any field of which there may be a poacher, in the week before the season, who walks out to the spot where he has put his corn on the ground to see if he can get a clutch of pheasant or partridge with one shot.

We want to help those Civic Guards who are trying to help us. We want to make it most unprofitable for the game dealers to have on their premises poached game. We want to ensure that the poacher will not have such an easy time because the poacher is not interested in two birds getting up, but in ten—that is, if he is a professional poacher. That is the type of poacher who should have his nefarious activities curtailed or eliminated entirely.

In our motion, we say that the game dealer shall not have on his premises or purchase for 21 days after the start of the season game birds. Therefore, the hotelier cannot sell them. The Civic Guard can go to the game dealers in his area or, in the case of Dublin, to their premises and see if they have in cold storage game birds during the period in which we seek to prescribe they shall not have them. I want to stress the fact that this is a very moderate motion. It does not seek to do anything radical. All it seeks is that, for 21 days, it will not be permissible to sell, buy or have game; that you must go out and shoot your game and give it as a present to a friend or keep it yourself, but that it shall be impossible to sell game to a hotelier or a game dealer. That is not a very great restriction. Shooters and sportsmen have no surplus game to sell, if the game is shot in a legitimate manner. They are, therefore, not interested in selling game.

We do not seek to prohibit the selling of game throughout the whole season, but we do seek to prohibit it during the first three weeks of the season. I received a letter from a friend in Deputy Corry's constituency which sets out what a group of sportsmen think on this matter. I think it may be worth while reading. I will quote from the second paragraph of the letter:—

"While all true sportsmen welcome this motion, they are of opinion that the sale of pheasants, in particular, should be prohibited for the period of three years. There is no doubt that pheasants are being slaughtered before the opening of the season and, furthermore, we have a certain number of sportsmen (if you could call them such) who merely shoot pheasants for the sole purpose of selling them. This generally leads to the shooting of hen pheasants as they retain the hens for their own use but sell the cocks to hotels and dealers.

In the general opinion here, it would be of great assistance to preserve the game, if the selling of pheasants was stopped for the period as stated. Undoubtedly the new sportsmen would get tired of shooting indiscriminately if they could not get a monetary reward. You would find that true sportsmen would still shoot for the love of the game.

I wish to take this opportunity on behalf of my friends to thank you for raising the point and doing something to preserve the game in this country."

Our laws do not and have not preserved the game. The number of game birds in this country has decreased over the years, without there being even one or two years in which there was an improvement. I think this motion is the most moderate approach to the problem that could possibly be evolved. In America, for example, you may not shoot more than five birds in one day with one gun and there are many areas in America where the number of game birds is quite extraordinary. There are vast areas in America and in one area alone, as big as Ireland itself, it is not permissible to carry a gun. With their level of game, they still take measures which we do not suggest, such as the appointment of wardens, which costs a lot of money. The measure we suggest is not going to cost the State a penny, but something must be done. These countries are doing something before their stocks are depleted. Our stocks are depleted and it now behoves us to do something to preserve the game.

The gentleman I have previously referred to, who can have all the shooting he wants, is not the kind of person we are interested in. He said that as far as the shooting of game is concerned, Ireland is no use except to shoot snipe. It is a strange thing, but a similar insulting opinion was given four centuries ago by an English King when he said that Ireland was no use, except for the shooting of snipe. I would impress on the Minister the fact that this is the most moderate approach that can be made to this matter. We do not seek in any way to impose any great strictures on anybody, but we do seek to do something for the protection of game in Ireland before they are completely extinct.

Mr. Finlay

I second the motion and I should like to say a few words in addition to what Deputy Donegan has said. The first thing I should like to impress upon the House is what most rural Deputies and people who travel through the country will realise, but what is not generally accepted, and that is, that, when we come to the House looking for some measure of protection for the stock of game in this country and for something to be done, we are by no means looking for anything that is particular or peculiar to a section of the people who are well off or to any certain section of the people.

Whatever was the position 50 years ago in regard to shooting in this country, any Deputy who represents a rural constituency or who travels through the country will realise that shooting is now a hobby followed by people in every walk of life up and down the country. In any part of Dublin, there are now to be found people who are genuinely interested in shooting and who want to get out of the city for the week-end or for their holidays, so as to get a bit of shooting. There are many more people in Dublin now interested in shooting than there were in the entire country 50 years ago. I should like very much to impress upon the House that, whatever the views of Deputies may be with regard to the details of the motion, or to the urgency of the Dáil interfering in the preservation of game, we are not approaching this matter as a problem belonging to one part of the country, or to one section of the people or to country rather than city. I should like Deputies to realise that, in every part of their own constituencies, there are a couple of people, in village, town or country, who are genuinely interested in shooting.

Anyone who is genuinely interested in shooting in this country or, indeed, anyone who moves around, must realise that, unless something is done, and unless something drastic is done, shooting as a sport will disappear from this country. There is no doubt that, in the past 40 years, the available stock of game has dropped steadily. I think the stock of inland fish would have dropped as well, except for the fact that a very large attempt has been made by the Inland Fisheries Trust to do for angling in this country what I think has to be done for shooting as a sport.

Mr. McQuillan

Why has the drop taken place, both in game and in fish?

Mr. Finlay

I believe there are two causes for the drop in the stock of game in this country. The first is that, whether you like it or not, when you disposed of the landlords in this country, you also disposed of their gamekeepers. The landlords preserved their shooting rights over too large an area of country, with the result that other decent people could not get any shooting at all. The second cause is that they kept down the stock of vermin over very large areas. They did not do it for the sake of the people living around them or for the sake of the farmers, but simply and solely for the maintenance of their own good shooting.

However, it does not matter why they did it. They did it, and the fact that it is not being done now is one of the main reasons for the drop in the game population. The fact that there are now no gamekeepers to keep down the vermin over large areas of country is one of the reasons for the drop in game. There is now no organised attempt to keep down vermin. That is a fact that we have to face.

I should like to be in a position to bring forward some wholesale scheme for the destruction of vermin. I hope that, sooner or later, when more concrete facts can be gathered from inquiries now being made by myself and some other people, it will be possible to put such a scheme before the House. Changing the law is not going to kill magpies, or grey crows, or foxes. However, it is a step in the right direction that this motion has been brought before the House.

Deputy McQuillan has asked me why the stock of game has dropped. The increase in the number of vermin is one reason and it is probably the chief reason. Another is that, in the case of pheasants, there was at that time considerable artificial rearing which has decreased since then. That only applies to one particular kind of game, of course. The second reason is that there are probably twice, if not three times, as many people shooting in this country to-day as there were 40 years ago. If you decrease the destruction of the chief enemy of game, namely vermin, that is, if you increase the vermin and at the same time increase the number of sportsmen, you are bound to have a reduction. That reduction has taken place.

With regard to some of the migratory birds, particularly with regard to woodcock over a period and possibly to a limited extent with regard to snipe, there seems to be a suggestion that because of some of the things happening very far abroad— certainly during the war-troubled years — a lot of these birds migrate in large numbers to small areas. There is the suggestion that if the Arabs, for instance, fall out with somebody else— countries where the woodcock migrate to — you get woodcock. That is the third case. Unless something practical, something that will appeal and something that is within the economic resources of the country can be put forward, we are contenting ourselves with this motion.

There is only one thing I should like to say with regard to shooting, before we come to the general terms of the motion, and it has been mentioned by Deputy Donegan. He said this has a tourist importance. As far as I am concerned, in bringing any motion to this House with regard to shooting or the preservation of game, it is a lone man's sport to be enjoyed by Irishmen in Ireland. I would not give two figs if a single tourist were never induced into this country in order to shoot game. I do not believe you will ever get to the stage of having a sufficient stock of game in this country to be able to attract tourists, without running the ordinary fellow off the street. Take the plain example of the man who lives in any town—say, Deputy McQuillan's own home town, Roscommon, where I spent some time at this sport.

Mr. McQuillan

That is why there is so little left for us.

Mr. Finlay

I am not as good or bad as that, I am afraid. Take a man who has a half-day a week and can shoot on a Sunday as well. There will always be a limited stock of game for him and, no matter what laws we pass, it will remain severely limited. I do not believe it will be any good to him or anybody else, or sufficiently economically sound to make the sacrifice worthwhile, to start inviting tourists to shoot seven days a week in Roscommon so that when he goes out on a Saturday he will find he has nothing to shoot.

Mr. McQuillan

Except the tourist.

Mr. Finlay

Except the tourist. I do not think it is a tourist attraction. I think angling, can be. Obviously, lakes and rivers can be fished to a greater extent than is being done. There is room for tourists there but not for tourists to shoot. I am not putting it forward as an attraction. It is a small thing. It is not important. You will never make a fortune out of it. You will never have 1,000 people in your constituency asking you about it. I am concerned with it only in so far as it affects ordinary people living in this country and wanting their shooting in this country.

These are the three general grounds on which I should like to impress on the House something of the importance of this motion. It is a facile thing, if you like, to say that the stock of game has dcreased but the extent of its decrease cannot be measured in numbers. I think it is true, or very nearly true, that, as Deputy Donegan said, we are rapidly approaching the situation where snipe is probably one of the only game birds left in a reasonably plentiful supply in this country. Take grouse as an example. The whole of Cork, Kerry, Donegal, Mayo particularly, and a lot of Connemara should hold, and held as recently as not very long before the last world war, reasonable stocks of grouse.

I remember areas — and I have records of areas before I was even old enough to go out shooting, particularly in Mayo and Cavan on the Swanlibar Mountains — where two people with a dog towards the beginning of the season could reasonably expect to get between eight and ten brace of grouse in a day's shooting. It was not a great day out and they had not left the place bare after them. I do not think anyone's experience since 1947 would point as far as that except on a bumper day. Where, before, two people with a dog might expect to get eight, nine or ten brace of grouse over a reasonable mountain at the beginning of the season, the most you can get now is two or three brace. That has happened within my personal recollection since 1937 or 1938. I understand from people who are older and more experienced than I am that that had happened before 1937. It will be seen, therefore, that the ratio between 25 or 30 years ago and the present is greatly increased.

That is grouse alone. Anybody with experience will tell you that it is one of the pleasantest forms of shooting. It least lends itself to organisation. It is not the mass shoots organised for six guns — 35 people taking part and only six shooting — that you have in other countries. It is a very individual and pleasant type of shooting. It comes at a time of the year when a great number of people normally get their holidays from work. In every kind of job, holdiays are inclined to gravitate into the month of August and the first half of September. Grouse-shooting is one of the few forms of shooting available to people at that time. In my calling, that is the time we get holidays and that is the shooting that is to be found most available. That is disappearing very rapidly off the face of Ireland. What are the causes? I mentioned vermin and the increase of guns.

This motion is put down on the basis that a third contributory cause — which can be checked without expense, without any extensive scheme and merely by the act of this House —is the unfair shooting before the season commences of a large number of birds by people who are not sportsmen. I do not put this on any basis that it is sacred that a man should not shoot until the 12th August. I do not put it on any basis of the glorious 12th or that the opening of the season should be adhered to or that a fellow is not playing his part if he shoots before that. It will be obvious, however, that if 85 fellows observe one particular rule, why should 15 get off with breaking it and scooping the pool — for that is the type of thing that is happening?

A situation has now arisen with regard to pheasants in particular, grouse to a lesser extent and, to a certain extent, mallard, duck and, of course, partridge where, in every county in Ireland, a great part of the existing stock of game is being shot before the opening of the season by one or two men. People who want to sell it could cover five parishes at this particular game before the opening of the season. It is easy to quote examples. A year ago, I was aware of one area in the country where a fellow presented himself on the first day of the pheasant shooting season — it was the year they opened on the 1st October and, admittedly, they were easy to see; they were running around like farmyard chicks—at two hotels about 30 miles apart and sold 37 pheasants to one hotel and 40 to the other. He sold them at about 3 o'clock in the day. He had not shot 77 pheasants since that morning. He was up terribly early. It is only an example of what is going on.

Coming down to our motion, the first suggestion and the one we should like to press very urgently is this. There is no possible way of stopping what is happening unless you are prepared to put a sort of moratorium, a postponement, on the date on which a man may sell game after the opening of the season.

I quite appreciate there are a number of people — I think the number is probably very small — who actually make their living out of shooting game. I also appreciate there is a much larger number of people who keep themselves in cartridges and pay for their own sport and who probably or possibly would not be able to get the sport unless they were able to sell their game. Fair enough; nobody wants to do them any harm, but, unless one puts a gap between the date on which the game is sold and the date on which the game may be shot for the first time, one will always get a week's activity by what is known as the professional poacher before the opening of the season. If he gets out a week before the other people, operating by his own methods, he will make a tremendous hole in the stock of game in any area. Make no mistake about it, he does that. But he does not make a fortune out of it because the man who makes the fortune out of it is the game dealer.

Go into one of several restaurants or hotels in any part of the country on the opening day of the game season— the opening day of the pheasant season, for instance—and if one is willing to pay 12/6 or 15/- one will get served the grandest hung ten-day pheasant in the world. It is in beautiful condition. It has been hung for ten days, and this is the opening day of the season. As in the case of oysters in Galway Bay, it is the opening day of the pheasant season and, therefore, pheasant is on the menu. That is the situation in the most reputable establishments at the present time. Now these birds must have been shot several days before. It is not the poacher who is really guilty; it is the game dealer who buys from the poacher and produces them to the hotel or restaurant.

Mr. McQuillan

Do not many of the hotels buy direct?

Mr. Finlay

Undoubtedly they will from the poacher himself. He will present himself at the back door, a deal will be made and in will go the pheasant.

Mr. McQuillan

How will the Deputy get over that?

Mr. Finlay

If our motion is accepted, it will be illegal to buy pheasants until 21 days after the opening of the season. If that is accepted and pheasant is produced on the menu in an hotel or restaurant on the first or second day of the season, for instance, I would hope that the proprietor would have a tremendous job persuading any district justice that he got a present of two dozen birds so that he and his hotel could put them on the menu. In other words, if they are on the menu, it must be quite obvious they have been bought and it will be an offence to buy them if our motion is accepted.

Mr. McQuillan

Could not the hotel proprietor and his son shoot them?

Mr. Finlay

They could, but if the proprietor produces them on the menu in an unreasonable number that will take a good deal of explaining.

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

The proprietor could not sell them to the diners.

Mr. Finlay

He could not sell them. He could give them to his friends.

Mr. McQuillan

I would not mind having my lunch on a day like that.

Mr. Finlay

If that is not done, there will be a continuation of what is going on at present. The greatest objection to the present situation is that, apart from the question of the stock of game, there are one or two fellows who, by ignoring the existing law, are getting a completely unfair advantage over the rest of the people in the area. They just go out and ignore the law and the rest have to put up with the back-end of the stock.

The second matter we have before the House is the question of seasons. There is nothing sacred about this. We have tried to put down what we think would be reasonable dates. Probably there will be other views with regard to the different dates for the different seasons. Taking them as they come, the first is the wild duck, geese and plover, 1st September to 12th February. That is a shortening at both ends. In the existing situation, they come into season on the 12th August and go out of season on the 28th February. There are two ideas incorporated there really. You may take it geese and plover are not affected by the opening of the season because they, normally speaking, will not be in on the 12th August or even on the 1st September. Certainly the geese will not be in. They are not, therefore, affected. But they have always been bracketed with duck and it is easier to leave them bracketed with duck; and, in so far as you are not permitting a man to shoot wild geese before 1st September, whereas he used to shoot on 12th August, no difficulty arises because the first wild geese that arrive here arrive on the last day of September.

As far as plover are concerned, again I do not think the change is of much importance. A certain amount of golden plover nest here, but I do not think anyone will suffer any very great hardship if he is not permitted to shoot plover until 1st September. As far as wild duck are concerned, everyone's experience seems to be that the country is full of flappers on 12th August, young duck only half able to fly. It may be that, when the 1930 Act was framed, climatic conditions were different and the ducks were stronger. Within the last six or seven years anyone who has any experience at all will tell you that, in the normal way, the majority of duck hatched out in any given year are not really fit to fly on 12th August and are very easily shot. To a certain extent, they are fit to fly, but they are not able to look after themselves. One will walk into a clutch of them and they will get up all round one and will be as easy to shoot as crows; they will drop down 50 or 60 yards on and one can walk on and pick up the rest of them. It should not be any great hardship to put the date back to 1st September.

With regard to the latter end of the season, there are two possible classes of duck. The home duck is undoubtedly starting to mate towards the end of February. Now, once they start to mate they lose all their wariness. It is a common experience to find ducks paired towards the end of February. They are very easy to shoot once they pair. Our suggestion is to put back the date; in other words, to shorten the season so as to give them an opportunity of pairing off.

Next I come to the geese and foreign duck, such as widgeon and so on. Again, like all birds, once they start to collect in order to migrate, they lose a considerable amount of their wariness. That applies particularly to wild geese. Whereas wild geese are normally very wary and very difficult to get up to, at the beginning of February and during the first ten days of February they start collecting together to make their migratory flight and they lose their caution altogether as the end of February approaches. That is the reason for the first change for which we are asking.

With regard to partridge and pheasant, we have made partridge 1st November. They have been tied to pheasants and they have been a month back in so far as it is permissible to shoot them in the last few years. It seems right to tie them to pheasants. They are not so wary and it is impossible to segregate them. One idea in putting the date back to 1st November is because they are in very, very short supply. Their shooting was prohibited for a number of years after the war, but it is doubtful if that prohibition had the full result it should have had.

One reason for not prohibiting shooting altogether is that they do not thrive if the coveys are not split up and they will not be split up effectively except by shooting. One reason for putting it on to 1st November is that at that time of the year one is making it harder for the sportsman because the roots and stubble in which they are normally found have depleted considerably and they are not as easily kicked out of a field of roots or long grass and stubble as they are in October. They are a bit more wary, more difficult to shoot and more difficult to stalk. If they are to survive at all, they will have to be given that extra chance. That is why we put that date down.

With regard to pheasants, we have put down 1st November, too, for much the same reason. We left the date for the end of the season as it is. There is nothing sacred about these dates. We would like the Minister to accept the general proposition that when he fixes the seasons each year, as he does, he should revise the present system and look at it anew. Not merely are there special circumstances requiring special changes, but the whole system of opening and closing seasons should be brought up afresh and dealt with on the basis that the stock of birds has greatly declined and is continuing to decline; and it is in reference to that, that the seasons should be fixed. We think that would be desirable. We may be wrong, but we certainly would like to hear any views anyone else has. We would above all ask the Minister, when he comes to fix the seasons for birds, to accept the general principle that they should be fixed with that particular idea of shifting the emphasis on to the preservation of the birds even if it means a shorter shooting season for some years to come.

The other two matters which are dealt with in the motion are matters on which I would like to put forward a point of view which I hope is of some importance. I accept straightaway that, generally speaking, the House should be careful in imposing on the courts limitations on their discretion with regard to penalties. It does not matter what the case is, whether it is for larceny on a grand scale or a motoring offence — it will be said that it is the judge who hears the case, hears the witnesses and the defendants, who should have the widest possible discretion in regard to what penalties he will impose.

The general principle of criminal law undoubtedly is that outside of revenue offences, which are in a special category of their own, the judge is given a maximum he may impose. He may impose a sentence, say, of not more than two years or a fine of not more than £50, but he is never given a minimum. He can fine a man 1/- or give him a day in jail. The only immediate mandatory sentence which I know of is the suspension of a driver's licence, if a person is convicted of being drunk in charge of a car. That is the only analogy for the suggestion we have in regard to the suspension of the firearms licence and of the game dealer's licence. As you all know, when a man is convicted of being drunk in charge of a car the justice may sentence him to jail or may fine him up to £50 or as little as 1/- but, whether he likes it or not, once the person is convicted, he must suspend his driver's licence for not less than one year.

Our suggestion is not as revolutionary as it may look. There is a provision in Section 17 (3) of the Game Preservation Act, 1930, in regard to a person convicted of an offence under the Act — you may take it that largely applies to shooting birds out of season, and so on. It states:—

"Where the person convicted of an offence under this part of this Act is the holder of a firearms certificate granted to him under the Firearms Act, 1925, (No. 17 of 1925), the justice of the District Court before whom he is so convicted may, in addition to any other punishment imposed under this section, revoke such firearms certificate...."

There are certain ancillary provisions, his certificate should be suspended for not more than five years and so on.

Section 23 of the same Act provides:—

"(1) Upon the conviction for an offence under this Act of the holder of a game dealer's licence, the justice of the District Court before whom such holder is so convicted may revoke such licence and such revocation shall be in addition to any other punishment imposed by such justice under this Act in respect of such offence."

That is the existing law. The position there is that where a man comes before a district justice for, say, shooting a hen pheasant when it is prohibited or shooting a pheasant ten days before the season, the justice may, if he likes, impose upon him a suspension of his firearms licence. Where a game dealer is found guilty of buying a bird before the commencement of the shooting season the justice may if he likes revoke his game dealer's licence and not permit him to trade in game dealing. Our request is this. Without in any way trying to interfere with the freedom of the District Court in this matter, I want to point out that these powers are practically never used or at least they are used on very rare occasions. There can be no two ways about it: every fellow who goes out with a gun knows which bird is which and he knows the date for the opening of the season for that bird.

If a man shoots a bird out of season he does it deliberately and when he is brought before a district justice and it is proved to the satisfaction of the district justice that he was guilty, the district justice may let him off and perhaps fine him 1/- if he is a poor man and cannot afford to pay a larger fine. We are not interfering with that discretion. We are suggesting, however, that that man should lose his gun licence for a period of not less than a year. We are providing further, if the suggestion is adopted, that that same man can go back after three months to the district justice and make a plea for getting his licence back. Therefore, if he has a good case or if he is a man who seems to show repentance for his crime the district justice can use his discretion and all the man loses is three months' shooting out of the season.

We are not asking for anything very stringent or for anything which is going to cause hardship. I do not believe anybody really lives by using a shotgun for game. For most people, it is a sport and it does not seem a very harsh thing that a man who is using it as his hobby but who is unwilling to abide by the rules loses his opportunity to shoot for a period of three months. We believe that would put a stop to a great extent to ordinary poaching.

The position at present is that even if a person is caught nothing much will happen. He may only have to pay a small fine in the District Court. The district justice who dealt with the case might think that birds should be shot for the 12 months of the year and might not regard is as a serious offence. But if the person knew that if he were caught shooting birds out of season then he was going to lose his licence for at least three months it would be a great deterrent to the shooting of birds out of season.

I want to make it perfectly clear that this penalty is not being asked for game trespass. We are not seeking any interference with the existing law in that regard. This is not a question of going in on another man's land or going in on a shooting preserve. We are not asking for any additional penalty or any alteration at all in regard to the business of one man going into another man's shooting. If a man wants to preserve his shooting let him preserve it himself and get whatever assistance he can from the Guards. We are solely concerned with the question of shooting birds out of season and it is in that connection we are asking for this penalty of the suspension of the gun licence.

The other matter dealt with in the motion is the question of suspension of a game dealer's licence. There, again, under Section 23 of the Act, as I mentioned, the existing situation is that the justice may, if he thinks fit, suspend a dealer's licence. There is an even stronger case for mandatory suspension in this case. Who are the holders of game dealers' licences? They are people who are trading in poultry and game. I do not suppose there is a great number of them. I do not know how many there are. They make their living out of it. There is an old saying, very often quoted to juries and when sentence is being imposed, that if there were no receivers, there would be no thieves. If there were no game dealers with a sort of slipshod view about what the season for game is, there would be very few poachers. It is the same with regard to many other things.

Certainly, with regard to this matter, if you could cut down or stamp out the game dealer who is willing to buy at the back door before the commencement of the season and to hang up and to cash in on the first market day of the season, then you would stop the before - the - opening - day - of - the season poachers overnight. The poacher will not go out, unless he can get sale for the birds. As Deputy McQuillan says, he can get some ready sale at hotels. He can also get ready sale at private doors. We know that. We have to face up to that. You cannot make the sort of law that will prevent the man that does not feel pushed about the open season. Leaving that aside, however, you can stop the game dealer from filling his larder before the opening of the season with grouse, pheasant and duck and producing them out of the hat within the first few days of the season.

A game dealer who does that knows very well what he is doing. He knows he is encouraging poaching. He knows he is trying to get one up on the straight game dealer next door to him who is in competition with him. He knows very well that if he has pheasants, grouse, duck, geese in his larder before the opening day of the season they are there illegally. There is no doubt about that. He knows he is buying them illegally. Why should he, if he is caught and if he is convicted, not lose his game dealer's licence? Surely he is not a suitable man to hold a game dealer's licence.

This whole idea of licensing game dealers, created by the Act of 1930, was created with the idea of getting some control over game dealers and having some sanction over their heads and helping to make them keep the law. A man who buys before the season, knowing very well what he is buying and when he is buying, should have his licence suspended. I can see no reason why it should not be suspended in those circumstances.

Again, I think anyone who faces up to it will agree that the first time a game dealer's licence is suspended as an obligatory matter — the district justice having no discretion — the first time a game dealer is convicted and his licence goes by the board, straightaway, you will find very few dealers willing to buy before the opening of the season. A man would not take that chance any longer.

If we are really serious about trying to improve conditions and arresting the decrease in the stock of game in this country, these are minimum requirements. As I said at the beginning, none of these ideas is sacred. There may be better and other ideas. In particular, I am convinced that it is essential that, besides these, or in addition to these or, some people would say, in priority to these, somebody should tackle the vermin situation very vigorously.

I ask the support of the House for this motion, not on the basis that it is a tourist industry, or that we will have people flocking here from any other country to shoot. I do not believe that they will come, and, whether they do or not, I do not think they would be welcome. As far as shooting is concerned, it is our own sport, an individual sport. It cannot be done in large numbers. It is a lone man's game to a large extent. It is a very pleasant occupation and the best possible enjoyment is got out of it by the people who live where they shoot. I do not put it forward as a tourist attraction. I hope it will never be a tourist attraction. I put it forward as a hobby which more and more in the past 35 years has become the hobby of every section of the people in every part of the country. It is a small matter. You will never win or lose an election in any constituency by being for or against the preservation of game birds, but shooting is one of the things that make life very bearable for quite a large number of people. No matter what their job is, the thought of having this sport now and again keeps them going.

If that is so, and I believe it to be true, we can, without spending 1/- of Government money or anybody else's money, at this stage, make one step forward in the preservation of game, and I believe that, if this House adopted in principle or in spirit the motion before it now, it would be an earnest of its desire to see game preserved in this country and it might easily have much more effect than the mere terms of the motion would carry. If people were convinced that the House was serious about this matter, it would be quite easy to come back with voluntary help and assistance and voluntary ideas to the House, as I hope to come back soon, and put forward some comprehensive scheme for game rearing and for vermin destruction which would really put us in a position of having good game stock again.

I ask the House, for these reasons, to accept the spirit and the details, too, of the motion and I would welcome any views on that.

Mr. Corry

I was wondering what were the reasons that made this formidable team of the legal profession so anxious for sport, until I read the sections of the motion to which we could impute a double meaning and say that it was a motion for the extra employment of the legal profession. The motion shows a very poor knowledge on the part of the proposers of the habits of birds. I wonder if any of the proposers ever spent a night, early in the month of August, waiting by a field of barley for a flock of wild duck to come in, or ever went into a field of barley in the morning and saw its condition when the flock of wild duck had spent the night in it. That would be a considerable time before 1st September. Barley is usually cut from 15th to 20th August. If they did, they would not put down this motion suggesting that the period for shooting wild duck should commence on 1st September. It is a very common practice for a farmer in my country, who goes out with his gun to have a bit of sport, to go to the barley field when the barley is ripe, or just after the barley has been cut——

Mr. Killilea

And get a dozen of them in line.

Mr. Corry

——and get them flying in in the moonlight. Of course, there would be no danger from some of the Deputies opposite. I would not be a bit afraid of what they would shoot. Apart from the danger of their shooting each other, I would not be a bit afraid of what kind of game they would shoot.

Mr. Donegan

Deputy Corry went for bigger game when he was shooting.

Mr. Corry

The duck would be quite safe with them around. But to get back to this motion, I have stated my first objection to it. I object strongly to the putting back of the date for opening of the wild duck season. I think it is foolish and wrong, for the reasons I have stated. I can tell the Deputies opposite that it is not flappers that sail in on a moonlight night about the 20th of August to a field of barley. They are anything but flappers and they do pretty considerable damage. We, as barley growers, are always only too glad to have a few neighbours come along and take a shot-gun with them for a bang at these duck as they come in. However, I would agree with the limitation proposed at the other end of the season, because at the moment I feel we are coming very close to the mating season, but I think the proposal about the beginning of the season should be thrown out completely. This motion, to my mind, is not designed to preserve game; it is a motion seeking to limit the class who shoot game.

Mr. Donegan

Oh, Deputy!

Mr. Finlay

It is nothing of the sort.

Mr. Corry

I did not interrupt the Deputies when they were making their case. I should like to point out that the farmer's son who likes to go out for a shot on a Sunday or a holiday must pay for the game licence for his gun. He also must pay pretty heavily for his cartridges, unless he is able to make up his own stuff. According to this motion, he is now to be prevented from getting any recoupment until 21 days of the season have passed. If the Deputies opposite had proposed a seven days' limit during which game could not be sold, I would agree with it. But what kind of a bird would you have if it were hung for 21 days?

Mr. McQuillan

It would be a humming bird.

Mr. Corry

He would be a hummer all right; he would be humming in more ways than one. Why do the Deputies opposite seek that provision? Is it not so that a certain privileged class will have the first ten or 12 days of the shooting season? Then, when the birds are well scared and frightened by the likes of Deputy Donegan, the poor devil of a farmer's son or the lad from the town who likes a shot on his half-day or on a Sunday will have nothing to shoot at when he goes out. The farmer's son is not a millionaire; he cannot afford to shoot purely for sport. He must at least get the price of his cartridges out of it. By this motion, he is to be prevented from getting the price of his cartridges. He can go out now, according to this, only when the cream has been skimmed off.

I find that in this country the tighter you try to make laws of this kind, the more the people think the laws were made for a certain class and the more they break them. That applies particularly to game or fish. I have seen farmers paying rates for rivers and the entire fishing rights of the river were owned by some foreigner. I have seen the results. As I say, the tighter you restrict the rights of the ordinary man in regard to game or fish, the more liable you are to have the law broken. According to the motion, district justices in future will not be able to consider the merits of such cases. In future, there is to be no amelioration, because it is sought to have the offender's gun licence suspended for 12 months as well as any other penalty which may be imposed.

Mr. Donegan

Hear, hear!

Mr. Corry

And then, so that the legal profession may get an extra couple of guineas, the offenders are to have the right to appeal against the suspension at the end of three months— a double barrelled one, that. Not only are we compelling the justice to take away the man's gun licence for 12 months, but we are also inviting the poor fellow to walk into a solicitor's office with another couple of guineas so that he may get his licence back. Would that be the real reason for the motion by any chance; is it a particular motion designed to increase employment for the legal profession? It looks very much like it.

Let us take the poor fellow I mentioned earlier, the farmer's son, who finds a flock of wild duck ruining his field of barley. He decides to go out one morning to find out if the barley is fully ripe and fit for cutting and he finds a big stretch battered down. He says: "Very well, I will soon clear out these fellows". He goes up again that night with his shotgun and, lo and behold, there is a Civic Guard stuck behind the fence ready and set to pounce on him. He is lugged into court and whether the justice likes it or not, he must suspend that man's licence for 12 months, in addition to any other penalty he may impose. I remember in my young days when you would come upon a gentleman hunting a fox and knocking down four or five of your fences in the process. You would take him to court and what would you find lined up on the magistrates' bench but four or five other fox-hunting lads trying the case. You gave one look at them and you knew the satisfaction you were going to get from the "boyo" who knocked down your fences.

In this case, the sentence is already laid out; the unfortunate justice has not even the option of imposing a penalty, in lieu of a suspension. He must suspend the gun licence, once he finds that a man is guilty of taking game out of season. That is why I hold that, in the first place, the date is wrong, where it applies to duck shooting, at any rate. In the second place, I cannot see any justification for the motion. This motion, to my mind, is framed particularly to drive out of sport the ordinary individual whom we all know and whom we, as farmers, all welcome — the neighbour's son who has a gun and goes for a shot on a Sunday, or the friend from the town, the ordinary worker who comes out on Wednesday evenings or Sundays for a shot. He is dependent on what he shoots to provide him with the cartridges. He is deprived of that here for the first 21 days afterwards, because if the dealer is now caught showing a bird for 21 days after the season opens, he can be prosecuted and his licence taken from him.

I do not think that laws of that type are going to be of any assistance whatever in the preservation of game in this country. I hold that, in the preservation of game, you must have the co-operation of the man on whose land that game is. You will not have that co-operation if you bring in laws or unjust motions of this type. You are just going to put him in the frame of mind in which he will say: "I am not going to have them. Well, I'm hanged if they are going to be there for others."

We have all seen — I myself have seen — men cutting very carefully around a flock of pheasants in a field of grain and lifting the pheasants' eggs in the hope that later——

Mr. Donegan

Lifting the pheasants' eggs in harvest time? You are about four months out.

Mr. Corry

Am I?

Mr. Donegan

It is the month of May you are talking about.

Mr. Corry

It would be rather in the hay season, certainly, but I have got the young pheasants——

Mr. Donegan

You were lifting the eggs about a half-minute ago.

Mr. Corry

That is like the man that mistook you for a snipe. The bulk of those pheasants are not in the preserves and the bulk of them do not hatch out in the preserves; the bulk of them are scattered round in the farmers' fields, and particularly in the tillage farmers' fields, and the more you attempt to show him that these birds are not meant for him but for a class above him, the more danger there is of having game birds wiped out. That is my honest conviction.

When Deputies here talk of duck being green at the start of the season, I wonder did these Deputies ever take a ramble along the seacoast at any sheltered little spot, for instance, in the past week in the really cold or sleety weather, and see 40 or 50 or even 100 duck get up right under their feet absolutely unprotected?

I think on the whole the motion is wrong and is taking a wrong line. The motion aims at excluding the people whose rights, in my opinion, should be preserved as far as the shooting of game is concerned. I am referring to the ordinary farmer's son and the ordinary city worker who likes a day's shooting and who, perhaps, has difficulty in getting the amount necessary for his game licence. Shooting at the present time is an expensive sport and by this motion we are aiming at depriving such men of the opportunity of getting any of their money back. If the Deputies are wise, they will drop this motion. I cannot see it doing any good and I certainly cannot see it getting through this House.

Mr. McQuillan

I have no doubt whatever that the Deputies who drafted this motion are very sincere in their efforts to preserve and increase game in this country, but I suggest to them that the motion, if passed, will have the very opposite effect to what they hope to achieve. I approach the motion in the spirit in which Deputy Finlay approached it. I want to be as reasonable as he was and put another point of view which is practically completely opposed to Deputy Finlay's. I have nothing but the greatest respect for Deputy Finlay as a marksman and as a man who is keen on shooting. I know he has no desire whatever to deprive any man in the rural areas or in the towns of an opportunity to shoot, if he has a half-day or a Sunday off.

But whether Deputy Finlay believes it or not at the moment, this motion, if accepted, will have the very opposite effect to what he hopes to achieve and that for a number of reasons. I asked, in the course of his remarks, why it was he suggested that in the past 40 years the stock of game had decreased, as had also the stock of fish in our inland rivers and lakes. He admitted that both had been reduced. He gave two reasons for the reduction. In the first place, his argument was that, when the landlords were got rid of, their gamekeepers were got rid of as well. The result was that there was nobody to keep down the vermin. In consequence, greater depredations were committed on the stock of game in the various areas. His other argument was that the number of those who used guns had increased at least threefold in recent years.

These may appear to be very good reasons why the stock of game has been depleted, but I want to bring to the Deputy's mind a fundamental reason of which the reasons put forward by him are mere offshoots. When the ordinary tenant rights and agricultural rights were taken from the landlords, the shooting and fishing rights were left to them. That is what we must get into our minds. If we want to solve the problem of sport and gaming in this country and make it successful, in the ultimate analysis we have got to deal with the question of fishing and sporting rights in this country.

To-day in rural Ireland, we have small holdings with a certain amount of turbary attached. We have the extraordinary position that in many cases the majority of these small-holders are not allowed to shoot over their own bogs, for the very simple reason that the shooting rights have been preserved in the landlord who has departed from this country.

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

It is in the Land Commission now.

Mr. McQuillan

Yes, but in many cases I have come across myself from time to time it was never decided as to whether the Land Commission took the right over finally from the landlords or left it to the landlords. In many cases it was left to the landlord. All that means that a spirit of animosity has been created in the mind of the ordinary rural sportsman against those people who have held those rights so long, with the result that the poacher is really a genuine sportsman. The way I look at it is that he should have that right to shoot over his own land and bog.

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

Let me keep the Deputy straight. This motion does not seek to deal with the poacher who trespasses in the pursuit of game. It only deals with out of season shooting.

Mr. McQuillan

The people who will really benefit are not so much the clubs which are set up and which are so desirable in rural areas, but those individuals I am talking about. If the motion is accepted, it means that Colonel Sir John So and So, who may be at the present moment resident in London and who has the shooting rights of 1,500 or 2,000 acres of moor and bog, need not come over here until his cold is better.

Mr. Finlay

Might I interrupt the Deputy for a moment? I am not trying to do so in the ordinary sense.

Mr. Corry

The lawyer made a bad case.

Mr. Finlay

A man who owns a shooting preserve can protect himself on his own preserve. It is the ordinary fellow who shoots in a neighbourhood with everyone's permission who cannot protect himself——

Mr. McQuillan

I see that perfectly well.

Mr. James Tully

He owns the preserve, but not the land.

Mr. Corry

The lawyer made a bad case.

Mr. McQuillan

I accept that Deputy Finlay is doing this in all sincerity, but, whether he agrees or disagrees, I maintain that he is conferring a real safeguard on the particular individual involved, in this respect, that if there is a 21 day limit imposed on the sale of game, the men who are now described as poachers and who are not really poachers at all, will not be enabled to shoot over this gentleman's preserve.

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

He can shoot, but he cannot sell.

Mr. McQuillan

Exactly. Why deprive him of the right to sell a few pheasant or grouse off Colonel So and So's bog, who is resident in London at the present moment?

Mr. Donegan

The Deputy should put down a motion with regard to game rights.

Mr. McQuillan

When the Deputies were putting down this motion, they should have thought of all these points. If you are going to deal with a serious problem, there is no good tackling one aspect of it, because that only makes confusion worse confounded.

Mr. Donegan

It is out of season for both of them.

Mr. McQuillan

The game dealer plays a very important part. Up to the present, the game dealer purchases game from the poacher as we will describe him. I think he is a very decent fellow in many cases who has relieved Colonel So and So of a surplus of pheasants. The result is that the gamekeeper who is doing a service to the community at large will now be penalised because Colonel So and So's pheasants are shot without his permission.

Mr. Finlay

No.

Mr. McQuillan

I do not think there is any argument which can be put up against my case at all.

Mr. Donegan

Can he not shoot them on the tenth day of the season?

Mr. McQuillan

He cannot get rid of them. It is quite clear that deep thought was not given to this motion when it was being tabled. I know what the Deputies have in mind——

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

It was not framed to assist poaching.

Mr. McQuillan

——but it was not translated into this motion.

Debate adjourned.

The Dáil adjourned at 10.30 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Thursday, 23rd February, 1956.