Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 30 Jun 1964

Vol. 211 No. 7

Committee on Finance. - Fisheries (Amendment) Bill, 1964: Second Stage.

Minister for Lands (Mr. Moran)

I move that the Bill be now read a Second Time.

The purpose of this short Bill is merely to continue the existing provisions for rates on fisheries which are due to expire at the end of September next. Those provisions enable boards of conservators to strike and collect rates on fisheries within their districts. They were first enacted on a temporary basis in 1925 and have since been continued from time to time: rather than continue them for a further limited period, the opportunity is now being taken to make them permanent.

Fishery rating has become a well established feature of the fisheries code and the produce of the rate represents the largest single item in the revenue of boards of conservators. Thus, out of the board's total receipts of some £103,000 in the fishery year ended 30th September last, £36,000 came from fishery rates, close on £29,000 from licence duties and £23,000 in the form of grants from the Fisheries Vote.

Local authorities, to whom fisheries were rateable up to 1925, receive compensation from the State for that loss in their rates. Where, by reason of the exemption of fisheries, a local rate on other property would have to be increased by more than a penny in the £, the local authority receive an amount equivalent to that which would be produced by such an increase. The total amount of these compensatory payments from the Fisheries Vote in the last financial year was approximately £33,500.

It can, I think, be safely claimed that this system of fishery rating has proved its value and has come to be accepted as a permanent feature by all concerned. I, therefore, have no hesitation in recommending this Bill to the House.

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

There is no objection to the Bill from this side of the House. Section 55 of the 1959 Act empowers boards of conservators to strike rates on fisheries within their respective districts. The Minister tells us that boards of conservators obtain their principal income from licence duties and from rates so struck. I presume boards of conservators who strike these rates use the rates for the provision of the protection services in their areas.

When I hear the Minister say that out of the total receipts of boards, some £103,000 came from fishery rates, £29,000 from licence duties and £23,000 from Fishery Vote grants, I recall that on more than one occasion he told us the salmon levy was used to enable boards of conservators to provide increased protection services for the safeguarding of fisheries. One would imagine that if the salmon levy were being utilised for the purpose of giving boards of conservators an income it is the boards who mainly benefit from the levy.

I have always maintained that the levy was used for the relief of the Exchequer and I am satisfied that if any substantial amount of the proceeds of the levy were going to boards of conservators to supplement their rates on fisheries, the Minister surely would have told us about it. When he is replying, I trust he will refer to this matter.

Can the Minister give us any indication as to what benefit the owners of fisheries get for the rates they pay? When a local authority strike a rate in the normal way, they provide roads, housing and health services for the benefit of the ratepayers. Can the Minister tell us what benefits fishery ratepayers get from the money they pay on rates for their fisheries? Do they get any benefit apart from the protection staff the boards employ? Is any portion of the moneys fishery owners pay by way of rates utilised for the purpose of repairing the walks or banks along those fisheries?

Naturally enough, boards of conservators have an income from licence duties, but, again, I ask what return has the owner of a fishery for the rates he is obliged to pay? The purpose of the Bill appears to be to provide that where a fishery is rated by a board of conservators it will not have to pay rates to a city, county or urban rating authority. It would be lacking in commonsense and would be unjust if fisheries already rated by boards of conservators had to bear ordinary rates as well. That is why I subscribe to this amendment of the existing law. I welcome any move that is made to clarify the law in that respect. Yet, I have grave doubts as to the return which the owner of the fishery gets from the amount of rates. I should like to know whether the authority that strikes the rate would be responsible for improvement of walks or banks; whether footbridges, which might be an added attraction to the fisheries, might be erected at the request of owners who paid rates to a board; whether suitable stiles would be erected convenient to fisheries; and, if so, at whose expense.

I should like to direct very special attention to a matter with which I have been concerned for a considerable time and which I propose to discuss personally in detail with the Minister at a later stage. I refer to the complaints which have been sent to the Minister's Department by owners of fisheries who are already paying fishery rates to boards of conservators and who have to endure various types of trespass on their lands.

The owners of fisheries pay rates in respect thereof to boards of conservators. They pay county rates to the local authorities. In these circumstances, one would not expect that they would have to suffer inconvenience caused by officers of boards of conservators, in the course of their protection duties, leaving gates open and thus allowing livestock to wander.

I do not know whether or not the Department lays down standard regulations or whether regulations are laid down by the General Council of Boards of Conservators, which is a body representative of all the boards of conservators, which would impose a high standard of conduct on the officers of the boards. I am reliably informed that in the course of their duties employees of boards of conservators, whether through neglect on their part or otherwise, have caused inconvenience to fishery owners. When I was in the Fisheries Branch my experience was that these employees were not only highly intelligent but were courteous and very reasonable people who discharged their duties with a very high degree of efficiency. Therefore, I am surprised to learn that on more than one occasion a fishery owner has had to draw the attention of the Department to the fact that gates were left open and livestock allowed to wander into neighbouring fields, thus causing general uproar.

An Ceann Comhairle

That would appear to be a matter of administration.

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

I agree. That is why I do not propose to develop the matter and I have already said that I will discuss it at a later stage with the Minister. Perhaps the Minister can tell us what return, if any, a person paying a fishery rate gets for that rate.

I should be obliged if the Minister would seriously consider the points I have made. I agree that they may not all be in order or within the scope of this Bill. Nevertheless, I considered it necessary to raise them and thought that the debate on this Bill would afford me an opportunity to ventilate these matters on behalf of persons who are obliged to pay fishery rates.

I should like the Minister to comment on the Salmon Conservancy Fund which was originally designed, as the Minister tells us, for the purpose of providing money to supplement the rates.

I have been anxious to get information from the Minister for the benefit of all concerned. There should be some means whereby the general public can get the information required. If information is required as to the rates struck by a local authority, the information can be readily obtained but it is very seldom that the public are informed as to the amount of rates struck, the amount paid and the amount outstanding, in the case of fishery rates. This information should most certainly be available to those who require it.

This is a very short Bill dealing with what can be described as a technical matter. We on this side of the House have no objection to its passage. The points I have raised are worthy of the Minister's attention and I should welcome any information he can give the House in regard to them.

I can assure the Minister that we are always ready to co-operate and assist in every possible way the passage of what we can describe as necessary legislation. The Minister will receive from this side of the House a full measure of co-operation in relation to fisheries. We have never merited the criticism which the Minister on more than one occasion has hurled at us that we were destructive or obstructive. The fact that we are readily cooperating with the Minister in giving him this Bill and, indeed, approving of it, because we consider it is necessary, is in itself a certificate of our responsibility and vouches for the fact that we approach such matters in a businesslike and commonsense way. When the Minister introduces a Bill which we consider is designed to improve matters coming under his Department it will meet with out support. But, when the Minister brings in a Bill which we believe deserves criticism which should be approached cautiously and the dangerous aspects of which should be highlighted, we consider it our duty and our function, as an Opposition for the time being, to deal with it accordingly.

However, I assure the Minister that we have no objection to the passage of this Bill through the House.

Mr. Tully

In the first paragraph of his introductory statement, the Minister said that the provisions enable boards of conservators to strike and collect rates on fisheries within their districts. There is a matter which I should like the Minister to clarify. I should like to know who it is that decides as to the fishery rates to be struck. I was a member of a board of conservators for a number of years and am aware that the position was that the board got instructions as to the fisheries on which they were to strike rates. The position has been reached in many cases now that small farmers who have a small stretch of river running through their land and who have not either the time or the inclination to fish are being charged in respect of that fishery a higher rate than they are paying on their poor law valuation.

Take my constituency, where the rate in the £ is well under 30/-. The fishery rate is now over £2 in the £. An extraordinary situation has arisen there. The Minister can correct me if I am wrong but I understand that if a person is alleged to have caught salmon on a stretch of water in one year that stretch of water becomes rateable the following year. If that is so, it would appear that a number of people will be placed in a very awkward position.

Recently, I met a man who has a very small farm. He told me that although he does not fish he allowed some persons who came to the district to fish off his land on a few occasions last year and one of them was lucky enough—but from the farmer's point of view unlucky—to catch a salmon, and that he has received a demand for £10 this year. It was a very expensive salmon if that is the case.

I do appreciate it is much easier to have a regulation made or an arrangement made whereby there can be a continuation of the necessary procedure without having to come before the House every year. For that reason we in the Labour Party have no objection to the passing of the amending legislation. However, when the amending legislation was being introduced the Minister might have considered doing something about the matters of which I understand his Department have been made aware.

As regards the figures given by the Minister of £36,000 from fishery rates, £29,000 from licence duties, and £23,000 in the form of grants from the Fisheries Vote, the ratio is all wrong. The sum from the Fisheries Vote should be very much more than £23,000. Having regard to fishery protection to which Deputy Flanagan referred, I am aware that a number of people employed on fishery protection are being paid extraordinarily low rates because the amount of money available to the board of conservators that employs them is so small that it is unable to make provision for the workers apart from the actual weekly wage it gives them.

In regard to the licence duties, the Minister is also aware—and he might possibly have amended it—that there is the extraordinary position that a licence can be bought in Dublin city which entitles the buyer of the licence to fish in rural districts of Ireland, in the Minister's part of the country and in mine. The result is that the share of the licence which should normally go to the local board of conservators is given to a board which is spending very little on fishery protection and is able to reap quite a substantial harvest without any expenditure worth talking about. The Minister might have considered that because since the passing of the Fisheries Consolidation Bill this situation has become more and more evident.

You have ruled out of order, Sir, the reference which Deputy Flanagan made to the leaving open of gates, and so on, but I should like briefly to comment. I do not think the comment should have been made. If somebody has a complaint against a bailiff or a fishery protection man, the proper place to make the complaint would be to the board of conservators who employ him because I can say from my experience that there could not be any foundation for it. The complaint should be made to somebody who can prove or disprove the allegation without going any further.

I should be glad if the Minister would clear up those two points for me: first, who actually decides what water is to be rated? Secondly, how can we in this House ensure that the rates which are put on the waters will not be so high that they will be a burden on people who are not interested in fishing? There are a number of people who make a good living out of fishing.

There are people who can charge as much as from 70 to 100 guineas a year for fishing on one day of the week. However, that does not apply to the ordinary person who owns a small fishery whether he uses it or not. I would ask the Minister if there is any way in which this excessive burden on those people can be relieved.

Mr. Moran

I shall take the last matters first and deal with the point about valuations made by Deputy Tully. As far as I know, valuations on fisheries are fixed by the Commissioners of Valuation, the same as any other type of property in the country. I find it difficult to accept what the Deputy said, that because of catching a salmon somewhere, the landowner or the riparian owner had his valuation increased by £10.

Mr. Tully

Would the Minister allow me to explain? There are many waters which are not rated but if a salmon is caught in a stretch of water which was not up to then rated, my information is that a rate of as much as £10 has been imposed.

Mr. Moran

In the jungle of valuation law I do not want to contradict the Deputy but my experience is that the valuation of fisheries is done by the Commissioners of Valuation under what we call Griffiths Valuation of 1851. It is unusual that somebody should find his valuation increased by virtue of fish being caught. On the other hand, I had the experience of appealing against a valuation in respect of a public house and discovering in the court from the books in the Valuation Office that this public house, which is one of the oldest in the west of Ireland, had no figure charged for the actual licence. Therefore, I could not very well say that this could not have happened. All I can tell the Deputy is that the valuation of fisheries is the very same as any other type of valuation of property, the responsibility of the Commissioners of Valuation. That being so, those concerned have an appeal open to them in the same way as the people who are dissatisfied with valuations elsewhere.

As regards the rate, it is the responsibility of the board of conservators to strike the rate. It is true to say that I can intervene if I am dissatisfied with the rate being struck but, in the first instance, the striking of the rate is a matter for the board. I have some figures here and perhaps I should say that, generally speaking, the rate is far less on fisheries than the ordinary rate prevailing in the particular county. The only exception I see here is Dublin where the current county rate is 41/-and the fishery rate is 42/-.

Mr. Tully

In Meath, it is very much more.

Mr. Moran

Drogheda is also an exception but in practically every other case it is less. If I take my own county: in Ballinakill, it is 35/-; in Ballina, it is 32/-; whereas the county rate in Mayo is 69/-. In Galway, the fishery rate is 27/6; in Connemara, it is 24/-, and the county rate 68/3. Therefore, generally speaking, the fishery rate is substantially lower that the prevailing county rate. We come in to subsidise the local authorities to make up for the valuation on which the fishery rate is struck by the board of conservators, the prevailing rate in the county. That has come down over a long number of years. At all events, it has been there since 1925.

I am not too happy about the whole structure and it is all under review at the moment. My energetic Parliamentary Secretary is making a particular study of this business and I believe that further legislation will be necessary to deal with it on a national scale. These old laws do not suit the present time and it is necessary to have another look at the whole structure of these boards and their finances. One can say: what do the local authority do for the rate that we make up to them by these boards of conservators? I assume that the local authority could do anything they though fit for these fisheries and those concerns, as they would in the case of anybody with whom they were concerned in their county.

Deputy Flanagan complains that the owners of fisheries get nothing for the rate they pay to local authorities. Many people pay rates to local authorities and get very little, depending on their location. That pattern is changing as we go ahead but there are people living in isolated portions of counties contributing to sewerage or housing schemes in other centres of population. Their turn is coming and they are now getting water supplies and so on. I am sure Deputies will readily appreciate that every ratepayer cannot expect that every penny he pays in rates will be spent in his own backyard or on his own doorstep.

We hear a good deal about the salmon export levy and the suggestion that it is used solely for the relief of the Exchequer. That is not so. The figures I have show that, roughly speaking, approximately £10,000 is collected from the levy on salmon, that is 2d. in the £ up to mid-May and 1d. in the £ from then on. This comes back from the Exchequer with a lot more because, as I think I said in my opening statement, an extra £23,000 approximately is given by the Exchequer to boards of conservators to enable them to go ahead with their work. It is incorrect to say that the levy on salmon is used solely for the relief of the Exchequer. The £10,000 that is collected goes back with more to this business. If that levy was not there, no doubt licences or something else would have to be increased in an effort to deal with the matter and make the necessary money available for these purposes.

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

Would the Minister repeat that? I understood the Minister to say that £10,000 which is collected from the Salmon Conservancy Fund is paid into the Exchequer and that from the Exchequer come grants to the extent of £23,000 to the boards of conservators. That bears out Deputy Dillon's argument and my argument that the Fund is relieving the Exchequer. Is that not really the position? It has taken us a good many years to get that information from the Minister and I am glad to know at long last that the Fund is used for the purpose of relieving the Exchequer.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy may not make a speech at this stage. The Minister is concluding.

Mr. Moran

Every halfpenny that comes in from all sources, I assume, is paid into the Exchequer. What I am pointing out is that the amount we are concerned with here in the Salmon Conservancy Fund is a mere £10,000 and that, in addition to this, over £23,000 is paid back to the boards of conservators: the £10,000 goes out to the boards which get this £23,000 in addition for the purposes of their finances. Many taxpayers and ratepayers would not be quite satisfied with the position in which this industry would pay nothing at all as an individual contribution for its own development. The boards, as I said, decide on what rate should be struck and it varies very much from area to area and from county to county. It is quite true that somebody can get an all-purpose salmon licence in Dublin that will enable him to fish, here, there and everywhere. That, again, is not of so much importance when one considers that the Exchequer has to come to the relief of all these boards.

Mr. Tully

But the Dublin Board of Conservators have not.

Mr. Moran

It would depend on the local board, on how interested they were in their business. Certainly, I was surprised on looking at some of these figures because it is difficult to see a solid, logical argument as to why a fishery should not be paying the same rate as any other type of property in the country, but they are not. However, the whole position is under examination in the reorganisation of this ancient structure we have inherited and we hope to get a more rational approach to the business in due course.

I cannot say anything about the matter that has been raised in regard to trespass. I understand the suggestion is about trespass by some officials. Trespass in a fishery is the same as any other type of trespass and the first duty on those who complain is to take action themselves. I do not think it is a matter for my Department but if the Deputy gives me particulars about the complaint I shall see whether my officials had anything to do with it. Generally speaking, anything regarding trespass on fisheries is a matter for those concerned.

I do not think anything else was raised to which I need refer. The Bill is necessary for the purposes I have mentioned and the general reorganisation of boards of conservators needs very careful study because many changes will have to be made. The position is under active consideration at present and I have no doubt that legislation will be before the House in the not too-distant future to deal with the reorganisation to which I have referred.

Question put and agreed to.

Agreed to take remaining Stages to-day.