Is this the appropriate time to make application to you, Sir, under Standing Order No. 29?
Request to move Adjournment of Dáil under Standing Order No. 29.
Yes.
I am giving you notice that I have given the Minister for Lands, or his Parliamentary Secretary, notice that under Standing Order No. 29, I wish to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the Dáil to raise a subject matter of urgent public importance incorporated in a question which I addressed to him by way of Private Members' Question which he declined to accept and which read:
To ask the Minister for Lands why Spanish trawlers are licensed to land fish at Galway while the Galway fishing fleet are informed that their fish cannot be accepted for processing in Galway; for what amount of Spanish landed fish have licences been issued, and whether any alternative arrangement will be made to pay the market price for fish landed by the Galway fleet this week and in the weeks to come.
I submit that this is a matter of some grave urgency inasmuch as one Irish fisherman has had 55 boxes of fresh haddock rejected from his catch at the same time as Spanish trawlers were delivering fish——
That is not true.
It is; I was a witness.
Here is the place to discuss this. I am asking leave to raise this on the Adjournment and to see why it is that we are handing over to the fishmongers——
I do not wish to interrupt the Deputy but he may not state a case on the application.
I am applying for an opportunity to raise today this question under Standing Order No. 29 and my submission is that this is a matter of public importance and of vital interest to the fishermen on the Galway coast.
I thank the Member for giving me early notice of this. I have considered it fully and I have decided that it is not a matter contemplated by Standing Order No. 29. That Standing Order confines the matters which may be raised to those of urgent public importance. This matter has not the requisite degree of urgency.
Has the attention of the Ceann Comhairle been directed to the fact that there are ten boats——
The Deputy may not make a case after I have given a decision. I cannot allow a discussion on my decision.
I do not intend to discuss it.
The Deputy is making a case.
You feel it is not an urgent matter——
Not as envisaged by Standing Orders.
——that the Irish fishermen are being handed over to the wholesale fishmongers? Well, we will undo it.
(Interruptions.)
Order.