I move that the Bill be now read a Second Time. The prime purpose of this Bill is the provision of funds and of facilities that are needed to bring about the full economic development of the inland fisheries industry. The salmon industry may be taken as typical of inland fisheries generally. In its present state it has been capable of yielding over the past ten years exports valued at an average of some £560,000 a year. I am confident that this figure can be materially stepped up by the provision of improved protection services and by the building up of stocks in a number of rivers which are under-developed. On the sport side we can at present count on about 16,000 visiting anglers. This it is reckoned can be brought up to 50,000 by the improvement of amenities resulting from the five-year fisheries development plan being undertaken by Bord Fáilte Eireann and the Inland Fisheries Trust. At a conservative estimate this target would represent an annual spending of some £2,500,000.
This valuable industry cannot be expected to make its full potential contribution to the national economy if it continues to be starved of finance for the essential work of protection and development. The resources available to boards of conservators for their vitally important work may seem to have increased considerably in recent years but the apparent increase of total incomes of the boards from £28,500 in 1939 to close on £70,000 in 1957 vanishes when the figures are adjusted to allow for the change in cost of living and purchasing power of money between the two years. The charges levied by way of licence duty have remained unchanged since 1925 when the price of salmon stood at one-fourth of the present-day figure. The income from fishery rates has lagged by about 5 per cent. behind what would be needed to offset the fall in real money values. In the result the increase in State subventions and the yield from the salmon export levy had largely been swallowed up in making good these deficiencies.
The old machinery for providing the conservators with income for protection purposes must, therefore, be overhauled if the services they render are to be modernised and put on an effective footing. A start has been made in recent years with reorganisation of waterkeeping staff in some districts, but in many places there is still an insufficient number of whole-time keepers. Much has yet to be done by way of modernising means of transport and communication: the river staff must try to keep a move ahead of the poacher in this respect.
On the development side there is already in progress a survey of salmon stocks in all major river systems and of the spawning areas serving them. In addition, I am arranging for an engineering study of the number of rivers in which barriers to the free movement of fish leave large areas for the breeding of salmon unused as spawning grounds. The works required to deal with such problems would in general be costly; but it seems reasonable to expect that the cost would be amortised within 15 years considering the benefits from increased runs of salmon which would accrue to commercial and to sporting interests.
Although the Bill deals with only five main subjects the provisions which have to be made are somewhat complex due to the amount of revision of the extensive fishery code which they entail. The arrangement of sections adopted in drafting follows that of the subject matter in the draft Fisheries (Consolidation) Bill which it is hoped to reintroduce at an early date. The result of this arrangement is that provisions relating to a given subject in the present Bill do not follow consecutively. There has accordingly been circulated with the text of the Bill a memorandum indicating in respect of each main provision what are the consequential provisions relating to it.
As regards the five subjects referred to in the explanatory memorandum, Section 5 of the Bill which provides for the issue of fish culture licences is designed to facilitate the undertaking of fish farming and to provide for necessary controls. Fish which are reared and kept in captivity do not require the same protection by way of close season regulation as is afforded to wild fish. Once the brood stock of the farm is maintained and renewed from time to time by captures of wild fish in season no limitation need be put on the times at which the produce is cropped. The effect of the licence will be to enable the fish farmer to net his fish for market at any time or season. It is intended by Section 23 of the Bill to bring rainbow trout, a popular product of fish farms, within the scope of the 1925 Act licensing provisions so that dealings in rainbow trout will be the subject of records similar to those kept for salmon and brown trout.
Section 15 and Parts I and II of the Second Schedule comprise a re-enactment in general of the ordinary licence duties on fishing engines at the existing rates. Licence duties of £1 on seven-day and £1 10s. on 21-day salmon rod ordinary licences are provided in lieu of present provisions for short term licences which are available in district of issue only, and provision is made for increase by Order of the licence duties on any particular class of engine subject to a maximum of twice the existing scheduled duty, any such new rate of duty to be operative on and after 1st January next following the making of the Order. It is intended that the rod licence duties should be increased by Order after enactment of this Bill and become operative as from 1st January, 1959, the duties for whole season and for 21-day licences being increased by 100 per cent., the duty for the seven-day licence to remain for the present at £1. The rod licence duties in the 1959 season would therefore be full season £4, seven-day £1, and 21-day £3. It will be necessary to increase the supplementary licence duty for Foyle area licence holders to £2 10s.
All salmon rod licences proposed in this Bill will be available in all fishery districts throughout the State. This will be a substantial improvement on the present system whereby the £2 full season licence can be availed of in any district after the district of issue only on payment of an endorsement fee of 10/- for each district, and the special term licences for 14 days or after 1st July are available in the district of issue only. Nowadays there must be few salmon anglers whose appetite for the sport can be satisfied by fishing in his home district only and in many cases the payment of £4 for a licence with countrywide availability will represent a saving on current outlay in obtaining endorsements on the basic licence. The new arrangement will be particularly attractive to visiting anglers who will be saved the inconvenience of searching out a licence distributor in perhaps half a dozen districts which they may easily enter in the course of a comparatively short fishing holiday.
To meet the case of persons mainly interested in sea trout fishing I propose to bring in an amendment at the Committee Stage providing for the issue of licences after 1st July in each year at a fee of £1 10s., these licences to be available for use in all fishery districts and subject also to increase up to £3 under Section 15.
The amount of additional duty which the proposed increases will realise — estimated at between £9,000 and £10,000 per annum—will go to the credit of the Salmon Conservancy Fund.
No increase is at present proposed in licence duties on engines other than rod and line as such can be regarded as for the time being sufficiently under contribution in the form of the levy at present payable on salmon exports.
It has been considered desirable to extend the provisions of the Salmon Conservancy Fund Act, 1954, to enable moneys from the fund maintained under that Act to be made available for the costs of approved inland fisheries improvement schemes, in addition to the existing provision enabling payment of moneys from the fund to supplement the income of boards of conservators. It has been further deemed necessary to incorporate the Salmon Conservancy Fund Act, 1954, with the Fisheries Acts and the Act is therefore being repealed and its provisions as extended included in this Bill.
As to the eel fishery provisions (Sections 19, 20, 21 and 22), the state of our eel fishing industry cannot be regarded as satisfactory. Over the past three years exports of eels are returned as averaging only 2,200 cwt. valued at £28,000 a year. I shall be very surprised if these figures cannot be materially increased by the employment of more efficient methods of capture and of fishery management generally.
With a view to promoting development of eel fishing on proper lines, I am arranging for an officer to visit the Netherlands next month and Italy later in the year to study eel fishing techniques and handling and storage methods. This study tour will rank as a technical assistance project the cost of which will be recouped out of Grant Counterpart Funds.
I find that before I took up office some consideration had been given to the possibility of lifting the restrictions imposed on the use of certain eel weirs by Sections 33 and 34 of the Fisheries Act, 1939. So far as I have been able to ascertain these restrictions cannot have had a very significant effect on the country's total catch of eels. The restrictions were in the first instance an integral part of the 1939 Act scheme for acquisition of all were fisheries and of certain other exclusive fisheries in tidal waters. It is not my present intention to bring that scheme into operation but if it should be found necessary to implement it at some future date the position regarding the eel weirs can I am satisfied be safeguarded in another way. I accordingly propose to take power to modify the prohibition on erection of eel weirs by means of Orders under Section 20 of the Bill and the restriction on operation of certain weirs by means of authorisations under Section 21. Section 19 of the Bill provides for a consequential relaxation of the restriction imposed by Section 35 of the 1939 Act on netting for eels in public fisheries.
Finally in Section 22 it is proposed to make a realistic approach to the problem of free gaps in eel weirs. The Fisheries Acts require that there shall be a free gap in every fishing weir. This has been interpreted as applying to eel weirs equally with salmon weirs, but in practice to insist on putting a statutory free gap in an eel weir could hopelessly impair its catching power. This section will make it possible to grant an Order for the operation of an eel weir without a free gap subject to conditions which will enable the Minister to ensure that satisfactory arrangements are made for the free passage of salmon.
The Bill also provides in Section 26 for the imposition of a licence duty of £2 (subject, however, to increase as provided under Section 15) on engines used for oyster fishing and in Section 24 for penalties for taking oysters unless by means of a licensed oyster fishing engine.
I may add that an amendment of the Long Title will be moved on the Committee Stage to delete the words "certain public" which appear before the words "oyster fisheries". This course is being adopted here and in Section 24 of the Bill as on reconsideration it is felt that if effective protection were to be provided for selected public oyster fisheries only, then the remaining fisheries, whether public or private, would be marked out for the attentions of the poachers. In the circumstances, it has been decided to bring all oyster fishing without exception under the new licensing arrangement and to require conservators to provide the necessary protection for public and private oyster beds alike.
The remainder of the Bill as indicated in the explanatory memorandum is comprised of amendments of the existing fishery law consequential on the foregoing main provisions.
In conclusion, I should again mention the long delayed Consolidation Bill which will be reintroduced in Seanad Eireann following enactment of the present measure. By the time the Consolidation Bill becomes law, work will be in progress on an amending measure of a more general nature than the present one. The introduction of such a measure will provide the opportunity of dealing with a variety of pressing problems about which boards of conservators and other bodies have for some time been seeking amending legislation.