asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs the Irish Government's proposals to the resumed Law of the Sea Conference, particularly on territorial waters, an economic zone and Continental Shelf rights.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Law of the Sea Conference.
4.
The fourth session of the Law of the Sea Conference commenced in New York on the 15th March last and will continue till the 8th May. The work of the conference is divided among three main committees and the basis for discussion will be single negotiating texts prepared by the chairman of these committees and circulated after the third session of the conference. These texts have been examined by Government Departments, and inter-departmental working group meetings have been held to consider these texts and to formulate policy for the delegation attending the fourth session of the conference. Co-ordination meetings with our European Communities partners have also taken place.
In regard to the territorial sea our present limit is three miles. At the conference there is wide support for provisions permitting extension of territorial seas to a limit of 12 miles. The chairman's negotiating text provides for such extension and its provision on the matter is broadly acceptable.
The delegation will support provisions for territorial sea limits out to 12 miles and for a reasonable elaboration of the right of innocent passage.
It appears likely that a 200 mile economic zone in which the coastal state would have jurisdiction will be agreed at the conference and the single negotiating text as drafted reflects in a large measure the interests of coastal states.
The delegation will support any proposal for the establishment of a zone extending for 200 nautical miles from the baseline from which the territorial sea is measured in which the coastal state will exercise jurisdiction over the whole area in so far as inter alia regulation of fisheries is concerned in accordance with principles and criteria laid down by appropriate fishery organisations and at the same time support measures directed towards confining the exploitation of anadromous species of fish—for example, salmon—to states of origin of those species.
In relation to the Continental Shelf the single negotiating text includes a definition of the Continental Shelf which gives coastal state jurisdiction to the outer limit of the continental margin and broadly meets our needs. The delegation will support a policy of jurisdiction over the whole continental margin.
Arising from that comprehensive reply, may I ask the Parliamentary Secretary if the Government have still firmly set their face against any unilateral action on our part to protect our rights on the Continental Shelf by way of extension of our fishery rights?
These are two separate things. The Deputy knows the Government announced a certain intention with regard to the Continental Shelf early in March. In regard to the fishery limit, I propose to answer that specifically in the next question. Briefly, the situation is the Government are against any unilateral step in regard to fisheries and would doubt, as I said before, the usefulness of such a step because it would not affect those fishing nationalities which do the most damage to our fishing stocks and are in the greatest competition with our fishing fleets because they are already doubly protected under the London Fisheries Convention and, above all, because of EEC membership.
The Parliamentary Secretary will acknowledge that other countries of greater economic strength than us have taken unilateral action and, in the light of that, will he not agree that we should at least consider our position in that direction and thereafter negotiate within our membership of the Community as to what our rights vis-à-vis our fellow members in the Community would be to that extended area?
The Government would reserve their position entirely and would not rule out acting unilaterally in this matter as they have in other matters. All I am pointing out is that we are not in the same position as the United States. It is not a member of the EEC and does not have to share its territorial waters with powerful neighbours with highly developed industries which take the greater part of the catch available off its coast and if the United States extends its limits to 200 miles and is able to police them it is giving itself that much more exclusive water which its own fishing industry can exploit.
We are not in that situation, as I have tried to explain several times in the House and outside, and if we were to extend our territorial waters unilaterally right up to the Statue of Liberty it still would not suffice or have the slightest effect on keeping out the Dutch and the French, who are the main exploiters of our waters, that at any rate one hears complaints about, or the British or any of the other EEC partners. I would be glad of the Deputy's co-operation on this. The public ought to understand that no unilateral act on our part, unless we leave the EEC, will have the slightest effect on the Dutch, the French and those other nationalities unless and until, by negotiation within the Community, we can achieve a more satisfactory regime than we have at the moment. That is what we are attempting to do at the moment.
The Parliamentary Secretary is again giving a very detailed reply, which in one sense I appreciate, but which is rather difficult for me, within the limits being imposed on me, to cope with. I want to say to the Parliamentary Secretary——
A question please Deputy.
Does it now appear, in view of what the Parliamentary Secretary has said, that the Government have changed their attitude on unilateral action? He said at the moment they are not against unilateral action in principle——
I am afraid we are having a statement from the Deputy. This is not in order. I want to assist the Deputy.
If I am asking a question may I not put the background?
The Deputy may not make statements. He knows that to be true at Question Time.
If in asking a question I explain the background to it could I ask the Chair to indicate whether that is in order?
It is not in order to make statements or speeches at Question Time.
If in asking a question I put the background to my question is that in order?
Relevant brief supplementaries are in order.
If you bear with me for a moment you may decide whether or not my supplementary is relevant and brief. Have the Government changed their views since the occasion on which they extended unilaterally their claim to the Continental Shelf and the Rockall Bank? The Government said then that they would not favour similar unilateral action. Have they been consistent in their approach to unilateral action on fisheries, because the Parliamentary Secretary in his reply now seems to indicate that they have changed their view? The only reason, I understand from the Parliamentary Secretary, that we would not make a unilateral claim on our fishing limits is that we could not police the area.
This is tending to debate. I want to dissuade the House against debate at Question Time.
With respect to your ruling, I would like an opportunity of replying very briefly to that supplementary question. The Government's position about unilateral action here or anything else is that we are a sovereign state and within international law must at all times reserve our position in regard to what we are going to do. The reason the Government leaned against unilateral action, and still do, in connection with fishing limits is because to make a unilateral claim in regard to fishing limits, firstly, would not have any serious effect of a beneficial sort on our fishing industry for the reasons I have just explained, because it would not leave out the fishermen who mostly exploit us. It would not derrogate from our obligations under the EEC. So far as the EEC are concerned and the EEC fishermen, we could designate not 200 miles but 2,000 miles westwards and they could ignore it. The only way we can get out of the EEC obligation is by leaving the EEC. and if the Deputy wants to advocate that let him do so.
Question No. 5.
When we acceded to membership of the European Community——
A brief supplementary please.
Is it not open to the Government, if the extension of these fishery limits apply by virtue of being an extension of our territorial waters, having done so, to negotiate within the Community for our share of it? Would the first claim not have to come through our Government? Is that not so?
Yes.
Then, having done so, would we not have to make the appropriate arrangements within the Community?
I was going to say that the second reason the Government would lean against the futility of unilateral action, apart from the absolute futility of doing so having regard to EEC obligations, is that there seems a secondary futility in doing so when the Law of the Sea Conference is accepted to be certain to generalise a 200 mile limit for all countries. So why jump a gun which will fire anyway? That is the second reason. Both reasons to me seem to be jointly and fairly compelling reasons. I quite agree with the Deputy, whether or not we have a 200 mile limit—let us suppose we have one—we will still have to achieve a regime, so far as we can, satisfactory to Irish fishermen vis-á-vis our EEC partners. I freely admit that the present situation is most unsatisfactory and I have said that before also. We are doing our best inside the EEC—I may be able to tell the House something more about it in a few weeks—to achieve a more satisfactory situation than the one recently proposed.
5.
asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs if, in view of the recent statement made by the United States Government that that country intends to extend its sea limits unilaterally to 200 miles unless agreement is reached at the Law of the Sea Conference, he will now make a similar declaration of intent; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
You will be aware from my reply of the 5th February last that the Government regard unilateral action to extend fisheries as undesirable. This is because of the desirability of achieving a zone by general agreement and because of the reality of our existing obligations both as a European Community member and under the London Fisheries Convention. I understand that the US legislation will come into effect in March, 1977, and that at least one further session of the Law of the Sea Conference is likely to take place before that date by which time a revised single negotiating text is likely to be achieved at the conference. In such circumstances and regardless of the other considerations, which of course still apply, there would not appear to be good reason for making a declaration as suggested.
The Minister for Foreign Affairs recently met a delegation of fishermen. Afterwards they said they were highly satisfied with the assurances he gave them. Was not one of those assurances that he would press, unilaterally or otherwise, for the limit of 200 miles?
He did not give any such assurance and no such assurance was demanded of him. I was present at the meeting the Deputy refers to. The delegation to which the Deputy refers wanted a 50-mile exclusive zone. While the Minister did not and could not permit the Government to attach their flag firmly to a particular mileage, which might be impossible of achievement, the Minister naturally will press for a very substantially improved exclusive fishery limit inside the EEC. That is the only one which will be any use to us. The only extension of fishing limits which can be any use to us is one which will roll back from our waters EEC fishing boats, which in any case very shortly will be entitled to fish right up to the mail boat pier in Dún Laoghaire, because the existing exclusive limits for member states only lasts for a limited period and when that period is up there will be no exclusive limit at all unless we can negotiate one. That is what is going on. The Deputy's inquiry about the fishermen's delegation is quite correct. The delegation came to express their point of view very eloquently and very effectively but they did not look for an exclusive 200-mile limit. That was never even mentioned.
Would the Parliamentary Secretary bear in mind that there are others beside the EEC fishermen involved, particularly on the west and the north-west coast, particularly the Russians? All of the argument the Parliamentary Secretary has used here is ignoring, basically, that there is any other interest concerned. Might I also put the other point to the Parliamentary Secretary that in Deputy O'Kennedy's supplementary to a previous question he advocated—I strongly support the idea—that we should go for a much wider limit and within that so far as the EEC countries are concerned it is then, and only then, that we will be in a position to talk about how to exclude them from those limits by special arrangement. The Russians are off our coasts and are taking massive quantities of fish.
I accept that there is a Russian presence of a fishing kind around our coasts. The Deputy has put his finger on the only country, although I think there may be other Eastern countries, such as the Bulgarians the odd time, but principally the Russians, who occasionally show up off our coasts. They are the only people who could be affected even on paper by the extension of our limit to 200 miles. When you have affected them on paper you then have to get around to the question of how to control this area, which is approximately 25 times the size of the area which we are at the pin of our collar at present trying to control effectively, as the Deputy well knows.
Surely we should police them on paper?
Will the Parliamentary Secretary accept that within the Accession Treaty to the European Community there was also the aspect that the Community would help to develop our fishing industry? The Parliamentary Secretary seems to be concentrating on what I might call a restrictive aspect we have to share. Does he not recognise that the Government have a great opportunity of calling on the Community, within the terms of our membership, to assist us in the first instance in effectively policing the area, with them if necessary, and of course also in developing our fishing industry and fishing fleet? Does he not recognise that the Government have such a responsibility so that we can compete effectively with the Russians and others who may make things very difficult for our fishing fleet?
I must ask for the co-operation of the House to dispose of questions a little more expeditiously. I must ask that questions and answers be more brief. We have disposed of only five questions in the last half hour. This is not good enough.
I think that reflects on the Chair, with no disrespect.
May I ask the Parliamentary Secretary to reply?
All Members' questions must be dealt with.
It is part of Community policy to develop the fishing industry as well as every other economic arm and it is part of our policy to prod them into doing so.
The Chair is anxious to make some progress on other questions.
Exercise your authority.
I am seeking to do so.
On a point of order, would it not be a good idea, instead of spending one hour on a break for lunch, to have two hours for questions? That would get over the whole problem.
That is a matter for the House.
Do your thing, Ceann Comhairle.
Is the Parliamentary Secretary really aware of the economic importance to this island country of the surrounding seas and of the absolute necessity to have a better deal negotiated now for our fisheries?
Yes, I am.
Are the Government really serious about this matter? This is a most important economic aspect particularly in relation to the western seaboard. The Parliamentary Secretary does not seem to appreciate what it is all about.