There is no difficulty or financial expenditure whatever invloved in keeping alive a market that has existed for years and could be greatly expanded, if the proper effort were put into it, and I say that for the benefit of the present occupant of the office of Minister for Fisheries. If we are to develop fisheries—and I have discussed this matter with people who are familiar with every aspect of the industry—we must find a market abroad for herrings, either fresh or processed, for kipper and sloke, canned or in any other form. It is only by a real earnest effort to expand our exports in that direction that we can look forward to what will be and should be as good a fishing industry in this island as exists in some of the better developed countries such as Iceland, Norway and Denmark.
I know that attempts made with regard to kippered herring have proved very successful. Why have they not been followed up? Deputy Dillon complains of our not advertising some of the nice products we have put on the market. Perhaps it takes time. We cannot afford to advertise. If the statistics giving the quantities produced are correct, we would not be justified in inserting one advertisement because we would not be able to meet the demand for one day. That is where private enterprise comes in. If we are not in a position to expend State funds further in the development of that branch of the industry, we should keep on good terms with private enterprises because they are of the people, just as the fishermen are of the people, and their money in private enterprise for the development of any branch of the industry should be very welcome to the Minister, to the Department, and those of us who are anxious to see development along these lines.
Those who seek to antagonise private enterprise are not serving the best interests of the potential development of the fishing industry. Nobody denies that An Bord Iascaigh Mhara is an essential organisation in connection with fisheries. We had many such organisations, but when these semi-State sponsored or State sponsored organisations come into existence, they should not arrogate to themselves the right to dictate to everybody in the industry what they should do and how they should do it. They should realise that they exist for the benefit of private enterprise to do the things which private enterprise cannot do because of their magnitude or their difficulty in some other way. However, they should, when using State funds, always be ready to co-ordinate their efforts with those of private enterprise in the interests of the community as a whole.
If private enterprise can be encouraged to sunscribe to the development of any branch of the fishing industry, I am sure An Bord Iascaigh Mhara would welcome that. If private enterprise can prove that An Bord Iascaigh Mhara are unfairly competing in any legitimate trade connected with the industry, An Bord Iascaigh Mhara should review their operations in that respect with a view to adjusting them to suit private enterprise.
When I say that, I want also to say to the people who criticise An Bord Iascaigh Mhara, merely because they are in some way acting as a brake on certain combines or would-be combines, that I shall not clap anybody on the back for that. In the cold war which obviously exists and which has been carried on for some time, particularly in the last few years, as between private enterprise and the State-sponsored side of the industry, there is a good deal of blame on both sides. The extremist on one side says that An Bord Iascaigh Mhara are an unnecessary organisation and implies they should not exist. That is nonsense. The industry would not be in the state of development that it has reached, poor and all as it may be, but for An Bord Iascaigh Mhara.
An Bord Iascaigh Mhara should not set themselves up as the body having sole responsibility for developing fishing and should not act, or appear to act, as having a monopoly in regard to either the marketing or the capture of fish. Every effort should be directed towards getting as many people as possible to engage in every form, processed fish, fresh fish, fishmeal, fish oil, fish products of every kind. That is the goal that we should set ourselves. I am not satisfied that we have made the necessary strides in that direction in the last number of years. Part of the reason is that the fishing industry has not been regarded as of sufficient importance. Very often the necessary attention has not been given to it at Government level.
The present Minister has given new hope to those of us who are genuinely interested in the expansion of the industry and he has already given the green light to those who are prepared to develop that important industry. I do not think that sarcasm or sneering at his early efforts by Deputies on the other side of the House can be justified, particularly in the light of the slow rate if progress made in the past few years.
The most dismal prediction this evening came from the former Minister for Agriculture, who virtually outlined that there was no prospect of developing the industry by the export of pelagic fish or demersal fish, for that matter, or fish products. I have not the figures before me now but the former Minister belittled the imports of fish by pointing out that certain delicacies in the form of Japanese salmon were being imported in tin and suggested that it was equivalent to luxury goods such as wines and so forth which certain people enjoy.
I wonder ho many licences were issued in the last year for the import of fish? I know people who are maintaining constant contracts by using an import licence to bring fish into this country whenever it suits them. That is not something which happened to-day or yesterday. The reason given for it is that it is difficult to fulfil contracts with institutions ot other large consumers owing to the insecurity of supplies on the home market. Certainly, we should have reached the stage when that difficulty should be obviated. If we have cold storage, we can conserve necessary supplies at a time of glut. Fish could be processed at a time when the price drops to a level where that would be economical. We could build up a reserve in that way for use when supplies are low. We should have learned sufficient by now to have completely eradicated the fluctuating market which is controlled by supply and demand. We could then set out to develop the home market.
While the home market requires a good deal of attention, the home market of itself will not make for an expanding industry. The number of men that it would keep comfortably employed would not be great. Any Minister who sets himself out to develop the fishing industry on the basis of the home market alone will not go down in history as having done much for the industry. If we cannot export fish in one form, we can export it in another. Let us set out to process fish aand send it out in the form of fishmeal, fish oil, cured, kippered or canned fish, so that the biggest possible fleets can be used to capture the fish and thus create employment. Metaphorically speaking, we are 1,000 miles off that as yet.
Deputy Dillon tried to create ghosts for the purpose of confusing the people as to what the present Minister will do to develop the industry. By his ingenious method, he created an imaginary statement out of the Minister's speech, that the industry was to be handed over to fleets of foreign trawlers. He flogged that ghost for an hour. Anybody reading that statement would believe that the Minister would hand over the fishing industry entirely to foreign trawlers but for the fact that Deputy Dillon stepped in in time to stop him. There is nobody talking of handing anything over to any foreign enterprise other than what suits this country and is in its best interests.
The other ghost that Deputy Dillon raised was in regard to the conservancy levy on salmon, which he finally brought down to a levy on the export of cattle. The bones on the Senator Quirke were again rattled in the House, to create in the minds of the people a feeling that Fianna Fáil would impose a levy on exports of cattle and agricultural produce. I do not think we are ever likely to make progress if ex-Ministers devote so much time to creating a ghost, as Deputy Dillon did here this evening, and manipulating it like a Punch and Judy show to frighten off the people who might have an interest in the future of a protected industry, in this case the fishing industry. I am confident that we can have as good a fishing industry here as they have in Norway or Iceland or Spain or any other country with a coastline similar to ours, but in regard to the statement that it would be a crime to introduce larger boats, I venture to predict that saying is something which will be laughed at in ten years' time.
I know the people who engage in fishing—and, thank God, in Donegal, we have one of the best fishing ports in Ireland—and when you ask any of them nowadays what the outlook for the future of the industry is, these men who go down to the sea in boats will tell you that the emphasis must be on the larger boat in the future. Year in, year out, boats are going further out to sea, with the result that while the 50-foot keel waas quite popular as recently as five or seven years ago, they are now seeking boats with keels up to 57 or 60 feet because they realise from experience that they must go to new grounds further out to sea as time goes on.
To say we must refuse to have larger boats indicates that those who say it are not in any way interested in, or at least have no practical experience of what they are talking about. Deputy Dillon, the former Minister, had a habit, whenever anything good came out of fishing, of giving credit to An Bord Iascaigh Mhara and whenever anything came that he thought was not so good, he blamed the Minister or the Parliamentary Secretary, then Deputy Bartley. He has tried to ridicule the whole fishing industry because of a few German boats that have been referred to an many occasions in this House. I think those were a worthwhile experiment and that if we want to continue to develop the fishing industry, we will find ourselves faced with a situation where we will be compelled to provide a number of larger boats, whether fishermen-owned or State-owned or partly owned by both. If we do not reach that stage in the development of the industry, the industry will not develop properly. Any country that has developed fishing to the extent to which it should be developed cannot go on indefinitely without larger boats capable of going to sea at times when small boats either cannot go out far enough or cannot get the necessary supplies inshore.
If we want to have worthwhile market outlets here, through processing or direct export or selling on the home market or a combination of all three, for an output of fish which is increasing year by year, we must provide larger boats whoever will own them or use them, so as to ensure a constant supply of fish.
There is a good deal of misconception in the minds of the people in regard to the inshore fisherman. To me the term denotes a man who uses a small craft, a man who goes to the bog to-day and to sea to-morrow and is about his farm the day after. Deputy Dillon refers to the man using the diesel-propelled seine boat as an inshore fisherman, but to the man who heretofore got his living with a small craft, the fisherman Deputy Dillon has in mind is a deep sea fisherman. Whether or not we agree on the interpretation of the term "inshore fisherman", I should like to say a word for the man who still tries to supplement his living on a small farm by using a small craft from which to fish hand lines or herring nets when time and weather permit. I think such men are of sufficient force in the industry to merit consideration. I do not think we should look upon them as extinct or as doing other than serving a useful purpose.
The larger boat is to a great extent the salvation and hope of the industry, no doubt, but it tends to congregate a fleet in a particular port to the detriment of the small fleet of little in-shor boats which were to be found in every creek or every inlet around the western seaboard. I believe those that still remain merit certain consideration by the Minister or An Bord Iascaigh Mhara because they will probably be with us for all time.
Nowdays, the tendency to have better boats and better conditions is a matter of higher standards such as apply in every other walk of life and that is to be welcomed rather than depracated, but for those smaller craft that are likely to remain with us, I would make a plea for afraid they are not getting it at the moment.
To turn to parochial interests for a moment, we in Donegal read with interest a reference made by the Minister on more than one occasion recently. That reference was to the provision of suitably equipped technical education in navigational and general marline subjects. I do not say this for any selfish reason, but I do believe that Killybegs is easily the most suitable place for the establishment of such a school. Let it be a pilot school, if you like, and let us build numerous schools around it in the future. Killybegs is the largest fishing port in the country and we believe the initial effort in furthering the educational standards of those who engage in the fishing industry should be at Killybegs.
The Donegal County Vocational Committee have already taken steps by way of itinerant classes to extend knowledge of marine matters; we have begun, or are in the course of beginning, continuation classes in Killybegs. We hope this will lead to the establishment there of a well-equipped school which will fit young men to engage in the hazards of the fishing industry. The Minister can be assured of our full co-operation in any efforts he makes in that direction.
I do not wish to take up the time of the House by appealing again for improved amenities for the industry, the necessity for which has become obvious in most of our ports. We have other means of making approaches to the Department in that respect, but I should like to stress the necessity for improved amenities in all fishing ports as the industry expands. Failure to improve the amenities might act as a brake on the industry. Private enterprise cannot be expected to provide these facilities. We expect that An Bord Iascaigh Mhara will attend to these things as they are required.
We do not wish the Minister to be deflected from his efforts by those who say that export markets are not available. Of course, they are. Deputy Dillon made sarcastic reference to proposals aimed at developing a barter system under which we would get electric standards and telegraph poles from countries behind the Iron Curtain in exchange for herring exports to those countries. We have imported a lot of things from behind the Iron Curtain in the last few years. Statistics show that we have received millions of pounds worth of goods from these countries to which we export practically nothing.
If we are to continue our imports of timber and timber pulp from countries behind the Iron Curtain, we should try to sell them something in exchange. We will never reduce our adverse trade balance by one-sides trading with any country. Of course, I am not suggesting that there are unlimited markets for herrings behind the Iron Curtain. What I do say is that we should do everything possible, explore every avenue, in order to develop our markets abroad for herrings and for processed fish of all kinds.
Deputy Dillon, in his speech, did not indicate that any effort was made to find a market abroad for pelagic fish during the past three years. On a point of explanation, he told me that markets were found in France for salmon and shell-fish. For as long as I can remember, periwinkles have been exported from Donegal to France. It is not difficult to sell salmon anywhere. There is a sellor's market for salmon and there is far more demand for that fish than we are able to cope with at the moment. In fact, our salmon anglers have been experiencing a very poor season.
I believe that the necessary encouragement has not been given to the shell-fish industry, which has a tremendous export potential. The Minister should do his best to organise that side of the fishing industry to a greater extent. It has been regarded in some areas as rather degrading that people should have to turn to the collection of shell-fish. I see nothing wrong in anybody engaging in a profitable, honest work such as the collection of shell-fish certainly is. While we are pursuing a campaign of eat more fish, I think we great market which exists for shell-fish.
Finally, I ask the Minister to develop the home market to the fullest extent possible. If we got our people to eat fish every day in the week, it will be all the better for the men who are engaged in the fishing industry, even though it will be at the expense of other products already grown at home. Our people eat eggs, bacon, butter, milk, mat and vegetables. Anything at all they eat is home-produced. If we get then all to eat fish every day, it will be all to the good of the industry and will keep profits made thereby at home. There is certainly much scope for the development of the home market but in the provincial towns, the present marketing conditions do not tend towards continuity of supplies.
However, I will say this to the Minister, that, in regard to his future attempts to develop the fishing industry, if we are to expand it to the extent that we should, considering our coastline, we must expand it on the basis of exports of fish, either fresh or processed. Let us concentrate more on exports of smoked fish, fishmeal, fish oil and every possible form in which fish can be exportted. Let us bring to the western seaboard the prosperity which is there to be grasped, if a lead in the proper manner is given to the people who will be prepared to grasp it.