Vol. 295 No. 4
I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."
The reason I am moving this Bill on behalf of Deputy Gallagher is that he is in Brussels discussing fishery matters with the Commission and the people involved in the development of the common fishery policy. How long have I to speak?
The Deputy has 40 minutes. The usual half hour applies to Members speaking afterwards and the Deputy will have the right to reply.
This Bill should be seen as a second attempt on our part to protect the Irish fishing industry and to secure its future. On Wednesday, 8th December, 1976, this House authorised the Government to make an order extending Irish fishery limits to 200 miles. On that occasion we sought to persuade the Government at the same time as they were making that order to make another order reserving the first 50 miles of the 200 miles exclusively for Irish fishermen. That seemed to us to be necessary.
We were very much aware that the making of an order extending our fishing limits to 200 miles as and from 1st January, 1977, was a very important step from the point of view of our fishing industry. It was something that in normal circumstances everyone in this House would welcome. Fishermen, all those engaged in the fishing industry and members of the general public interested in the subject would give a warm welcome to the decision of the Government to extend our fishing limits to 200 miles. However, because the Government refused to make the order we asked them to make concurrently with the principal order, this extension of our fishery limits to 200 miles is illusory and is not guaranteed to confer any benefits whatever on Irish fishermen or on the fishing industry. Indeed, it is likely to be detrimental to the Irish fishing industry as things are developing.
Very briefly, I want to trace for the House the background against which we are putting forward this legislation. The measure speaks for itself. We are seeking to amend the Maritime Jurisdiction (Amendment) Act, 1964, by taking out of that Act the existing section 3 and inserting another new section 3. We are seeking to lay down in statutory form what should be the position in the future in regard to our coastal seas and the fish therein. It is worth while to read section 2 of our Bill which sets out the proposed new section 3. It states:
Section 3 of the Act of 1964 is hereby amended by the deletion of subsections (1) and (2) and the substitution of the following:—
"(1) Fishing in that portion of the exclusive fishery limits of the State which lies inside the line every point of which is at a distance of fifty nautical miles from the nearest point of the baseline shall be restricted exclusively to vessels operating from ports in the State.
(2) With respect to the portion of the exclusive fishery limits of the State which lies outside the line every point of which is at a distance of fifty nautical miles from the nearest point of the baseline, the states the fishing vessels of which may fish in that area and the conditions which they must observe while so fishing shall be determined by any regulation hereinafter adopted by the Council of Ministers of the European Economic Community in accordance with the provisions of the treaties governing Ireland's membership of that Community."
Our intention is perfectly clear and straightforward. This is our second attempt to secure the future of the Irish fishing industry. We failed to persuade the Government to make an order concurrently with the principal order. We are now returning to the fray and we are asking the House to legislate for the position. We are asking the House to legislate in a simple, straightforward manner. If this Bill is passed, the situation will be clear. Ireland will have new fishery limits of 200 miles. The first 50 miles will be reserved exclusively for vessels operating from ports in the State. The Bill stipulates that with regard to the other 150 miles out to 200 miles that portion of the seas will be governed by Community legislation in accordance with the obligations of our membership of the EEC. This step is urgently necessary now. If the House does not pass this legislation a totally disastrous situation will arise with regard to our fisheries as and from 1st January next.
European fishing in general has been going through a bad time and for some years catches have been decreasing by somewhat in the order of 10 per cent to 12 per cent per annum. Our fishing industry has deteriorated in line with the general deterioration on the European scene. The increase in fuel prices that occurred at the time of the oil crisis coincided with the drop in the price of fish throughout the world, and in particular white fish. The United States introduced certain restrictions on Eastern European countries and others which had been supplying the US market. They were prevented from doing so and they proceeded to unload their catches on the European markets. Prices for white fish were depressed at the same time that catches decreased. The catches went down because of the dramatic and catastrophic falling off in the herring catch and in our case the decline was almost entirely due to the decrease in the catch of herring.
That is what has prevailed in the past five years. However, there is another important and significant development, namely, that other countries throughout the world, 20 South American countries, the United States, Canada, Norway and Iceland proceeded to introduce 200-mile limits. From their point of view that was an excellent development, but it meant that fishing fleets which previously had fished in these waters were now to be excluded and were seeking fresh grounds in which to fish. The only worthwhile grounds left for them were the European waters, in which ours were the principal waters, and we now have a situation—let us face it—where deep water fleets are tied up at the quay walls in Grimsby and elsewhere waiting until 1st January to start fishing within the new 200-mile limit we declared here last Wednesday. That is the reality of the situation. It is very much a question of naked power fishing politics. Fleets in which there has been very heavy investment have been denied waters in which they fished for decades and they are now looking for new grounds and getting ready to start fishing in Irish waters and other European waters from 1st January and this presents us with a very serious and critical situation from the point of view of the future of our fishing industry.
It is clear to anybody who considers the situation that the only way in which the future of Irish fishing can be secured and guaranteed is by this country declaring that the first 50 miles of these new limits will be reserved exclusively for Irish fishing. There is no other way. The Minister for Foreign Affairs who is in charge of our negotiations in this area does not seem to understand the position. He replied at some length here to the debate on his own motion and our motion last Wednesday. I have read his speech carefully and I find it depressing and disturbing and I have analysed it carefully because it seems to me that he does not really understand the realities of the situation.
He talked at some length about his great achievement in securing in The Hague talks a promise that Ireland would be allowed to double her catch over the next three years. We pointed out to him that, as far as the first of these three years is concerned, 1977, he received a major setback in the proposals the Commission have sent him in confidence, but everybody knows what they are. They certainly do not tie in or relate to the alleged great promise made to him that Ireland would be able to double her catch over the next three years. What disturbed me most was his stating he had succeeded in getting this promise about doubling our catch without deviating one iota from our demand for a 50 mile limit. In other words, in his mind he sees this as two separate issues and, from some of the things he said, it is clear he regards the promise of doubling our catch over a three year period as most important. I quote from the Official Report of 8th December, column 373 of volume 295:
Let us be clear on this. What is important for us is not any particular means of securing that objective. The most important thing of all is to get it recognised that Ireland is in a special position, that this special position requires that we should have a continued and progressive development in fisheries when every other country is to be cut back and to get this as far as possible quantified in a form which is clear-cut and specific and guaranteed, and quantified it has been on the remarkable basis of the doubling of the catch in three years.
It is quite clear from that that the mind of the Minister for Foreign Affairs is focussed on what he calls his great achievement on getting a promise we can double our catch over a three year period and, in his mind, that is a separate issue altogether from our having a claim and demand to an exclusive limit of 50 miles. That is a fundamental mistake the Minister is making. These two things are meaningless when separated. A promise of doubling our catch over a three year period is nonsense unless it is allied to our procuring a 50 mile band. What hope is there of our doubling our catch if the nine member states and third countries are going to have freedom of access under some régime to all the waters between 12 miles and 200 miles? There is no possibility of our doubling our catch. We can double our catch within the next three years mainly through the exploitation of non-traditional species but I do not think we have any hope, and I believe everybody in the industry who knows the score will agree, of doubling our catch in the next three year period with our present fleet in traditional areas. But we can double our catch if we add a 50 mile band and if we have the capacity to exploit certain non-traditional species which have not formed part of our catch up to now. That is the only way it can be done. We cannot double or attempt to set about doubling our catch without an exclusive 50 mile band and I believe in his heart of hearts the Parliamentary Secretary, who knows a great deal more about the realities of the situation than does the Minister for Foreign Affairs, will agree with me in that.
I believe the Minister for Foreign Affairs does not really understand the basic issues. He got very upset when I made certain accusations against him. In the course of parliamentary give and take I may, unfortunately, have appeared to be impugning his personal honesty and integrity. I have no wish to do that, but his reaction does not come very well from a member of a Government, some of whose colleagues concentrate on personal character assassination, and why he should get so worked up about a legitimate parliamentary attack by me in this area is something I cannot understand.
At the end of his speech last Wednesday the Minister for Foreign Affairs indicated that he was very hurt that his integrity should be impugned here in the course of parliamentary debate. That is a rather finicky attitude for any parliamentarian to adopt about the cut and thrust of parliamentary debate and, if he feels that way about things, then he should have a word with some of his colleagues about the things they say from time to time about people on these benches.
The Minister for Foreign Affairs, those who supported him and a number of commentators in the media stated rightly that this is a very serious matter, with long term implications for us economically and socially, and that it should be dealt with on the highest level and should not be made a matter of party political scoring. I agree with that but, if one examines the speech made by the Minister for Foreign Affairs in dealing with our motion, one finds that a great deal of it was devoted to simple partisan politics. He seemed more concerned with proving that as a result of the negotiations accompanying our entry into the Community the Fianna Fáil Government left him in a very difficult position. A great deal of his speech was devoted to that aspect. I do not think that is true and I hope in the course of this contribution to reject that. But whether it is true or not, it does not contribute constructively to the present situation. As I say, he seemed far more concerned with scoring that cheap political party debating point than in outlining the present position and what is possible.
I believe we put forward a reasonably convincing case on the legal arguments in the debate last Wednesday. The Minister for Foreign Affairs did not rebut our legal arguments. He simply made ex cathedra statements that we were wrong legally. He did not prove how we were wrong, and I am inviting the Parliamentary Secretary to rebut the legal arguments which I am now going to make. Last Wednesday the Minister for Foreign Affairs contented himself with saying flatfootedly that we were wrong and that the law was not as we suggested it was, but he did not adduce any arguments in favour of that. He wanted the House just to accept his statement that such was the position. The Minister for Foreign Affairs occasionally falls into the error of thinking that if he talks quickly enough and at sufficient length he will persuade everybody of the validity of his case. That will not do in this instance. We are putting forward a very specific, factual and legal argument to him and we want it rebutted if it can be rebutted. We believe our argument is the one which he should be using, and that if, for instance, the French Government had the sort of legal basis we think we have for our claim, they would use it and push it to the ultimate limit.
The first step in the establishment of an EEC common fisheries policy was taken by the Community by the adoption of Regulation 2141/70. I have already mentioned, and I want to repeat, that that regulation was rushed in by the original Six in order to put themselves in a strong bargaining position in anticipation of the enlargement of the Community. That being so, I want to dispense with any suggestion that there is some strong moral case which the original Six can make in regard to fisheries and that we in Ireland are being hostile to the genuine Community spirit in insisting on a 50-mile limit and insisting on protecting the Irish fishing industry in the way we are pressing for. There is no such moral basis.
The next development was the enlargement of the Community, with all the discussions that took place in connection with that enlargement, eventually resulting in the Treaty of Accession which was incorporated for technical or protocol reasons into the Act of Accession. The interesting thing is that in the Act of Accession Articles 100 to 103 modified in a very substantial way Regulation 2141. That regulation was a very simple statement of the fact that there was to be a common fisheries policy, and all the member states of the community could fish in each others waters.
It is also interesting to note that Articles 100 to 103 applied not just to the three new member states but to all the nine member states. This is a very significant point which I want the House to take note of. We had the regulation establishing the common fisheries policy which applied among the Six. It was amended and modified by these articles of the Treaty of Accession. In every other case in that Treaty of Accession all the regulations and directives which constituted EEC policy at the time were derogated from or amended in some way in the case of the incoming three members, but there was no instance where they affected the rules obtaining between the original Six except in the case of fisheries. The authority for that is a man called Puissochet in his work The Enlargement of the European Communities, and I want to quote what he says about fishing rights in page 276:
3. Article 100 provides the possibility of derogation from the principle of non-discrimination established in Regulation No. 2141/70 for a period of 10 years, and not limited to the new Member States, but extending to all the Member States, new or original. It constitutes the only instance in the Act of Accession of a provision amending an existing Community rule in respect of the original Member States. As we know, the rule underlying the negotiations and the Act of Accession is based on the complete preservation of the Community patrimony among the six original Member States and the immediate or progressive endorsement of this patrimony by the new Member States. Fishing rights represent the only instance in which a temporary retrograde change in relation to the status of the law before accession became possible.
It is important that we realise that in the case of fisheries a very significant change took place. There is no gainsaying—and the words Puissochet used confirm this—that Regulation 2141 was amended and modified by the Treaty of Accession and what now governs Community law in regard to fisheries is Regulation 2141 as amended by the Treaty of Accession. That is a simple statement of the legal position. My argument is strengthened by the fact that the fisheries Articles 100 to 103 apply to all the nine member states, not just to the incoming three. Therefore, because it applied to all the nine member states, the six original members as well as the incoming three, it clearly was amending Regulation 2141. I go on from there to quote from Article 100 of the Treaty of Accession, paragraph 3 of which reads as follows:
If a member state extends its fishing limits in certain areas to 12 nautical miles, the existing fishing activities within 12 nautical miles must be so pursued that there is no retrograde change by comparison with the situation on 31st January, 1971.
I want to draw particular attention to the words: "If a member state extends its fishing limits in certain areas to 12 nautical miles...". Clearly, the Treaty of Accession, amending Article 2141, contemplated only 12 nautical miles and nothing else. The wording there makes it clear that there was no question in anybody's mind that anything else was involved except a regime covering 12 nautical miles. I am told by my lawyer friends that in all matters of contract and in all matters of international law there must be consensus ad idem or else the treaty or the contract is set aside. I suggest that there was a consensus ad idem governing 12 nautical miles and that was all that was in anybody's mind. The intention of the parties was to legislate in the Treaty of Accession for 12 nautical miles and no more.
How could one have consensus ad idem about something which did not exist at that time? In 1970 or 1971 there was no 200-mile limit. There was nothing known to anybody in the Community except six and 12 miles. Therefore, there could not be a consensus ad idem on anything outside 12 miles and I submit that it is incontrovertible that the wording of Article 100 makes it crystal clear that the Treaty of Accession, amending regulation 2141, only applied to six and 12 nautical miles. When this new matter of 200 miles comes in, there is no Community law governing the waters from 12 to 200 miles. It is a new situation which must be legislated for afresh. That is my argument and in putting it forward I am aware that I have the full support of the British Government and the British House of Parliament for it. The British dealt with the situation by doing exactly what we are asking the House to do, by legislating for it. They brought in a Bill, the Fishery Limits Bill, on 25th November, 1976. The first section of that extends the fishery limits to 200 miles while section 2 (1) states:
The Ministers may be order designate any country outside the United Kingdom, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man and, in relation to it, areas within British fishery limits in which, and descriptions of sea fish for which, fishing boats registered in that country may fish.
In other words, that section confers on British Ministers the right to legislate for the 200-mile limit by order. Clearly, the British Government's position is that there is no Community legislation governing this new situation and they will legislate for it by British order.
That was borne out by a statement made by Mr. Silkin in reply to an oral question on Common Fisheries Policy in the House of Commons on 9th December, 1976. I should like to quote from Hansard, volume 922, column 608 of that date:
Mr. Wall: I recognise the right hon. Gentleman's difficulties, but is he aware that the industry is becoming increasingly concerned at the lack of progress? Will he confirm that in legislation now passing through the House he has the power to impose an exclusive 50-mile British fisheries limit? Does he propose to use those powers?
Mr. Silkin, who was replying on behalf of the Government, said:
I say that it is vital to have the necessary powers. As for the 50-mile limit as an exclusive zone, the powers lie within the Bill.
Clearly, the British Government take the view, which is our view, that the situation is not covered by the existing Community legislation; that it can be legislated for and must be legislated for by the British Government. They have the power under their legislation to create an exclusive 50-mile limit and that is what we are asking the House to do for the benefit of Irish fishermen.
It is amazing that they did not say anything about that in yesterday's discussions.
But what I quoted from there is incontrovertible. The Bill said it and Mr. Silkin, speaking for the British Government, said it specifically. They are legislating for this situation and they have the power to declare a 50-mile limit.
I heard the Foreign Secretary addressing himself to that question yesterday.
I did not but I quoted from the records.
There are as many bluffers in England as there are here.
I do not know the import of that remark.
Is the Deputy asking the House to believe that the British intention is to impose, in defiance of their Treaty obligation to the EEC, an exclusive 50-mile zone?
I have quoted from Hansard and what Mr. Silkin, on behalf of the British Government, said:
I am very much aware of and deeply sympathetic with the problems of the fishing industry. I think I carry the hon. Gentleman with me when I say that it is vital to have the necessary powers. As for the 50-mile limit as an exclusive zone, the powers lie within the Bill.
We have had the same powers since 1964; we have had those powers for 12 years.
The British Government passed this Bill in 1976 giving themselves power to legislate for an exclusive 50-mile limit. The Government cannot get away from the fact that the British have done this; it is in their record.
We have had these powers for 12 years.
The British have legislated and given themselves power to declare a 50-mile limit if they wish to do so. I maintain that we have the same power, that Community law and legislation do not prevent us from doing so. We have a valid sustainable legal case to do what we are asking to be done in this Bill. That is the only way that the future of the Irish fishing industry can be secured. Anything else is confusing the issue. Deputy Esmonde was very cross with me because I accused Deputy Garret FitzGerald of misleading the public on this issue. I maintain whether intentionally or unintentionally that he is misleading the public. It is misleading the public to suggest that we have some security or some guarantee in a promise which he got in Brussels to double our catch because we cannot double our catch unless we have an exclusive 50-mile limit. I submit that there is nothing in existing Community law or legislation to prevent us legislating here as we are suggesting, to declare a 50-mile limit exclusive to Irish fishermen and hand over, if that is wished, from 50 miles to 200 miles to the Community to lay down the régime. That is the only way we can be protected and there is nothing in existing law to prevent that. Regulation 2141, amended by the Treaty of Accession, can only be changed by amending the Treaty of Accession, by renegotiating it. That Treaty governs the transitional period and we are in the middle of it now. This Bill does not conflict with any statutory legal obligation of ours within the Community and there is no reason why the House should not adopt it.
I should like to say something about the background and the politics of the debate in which the House is now engaged. Essentially, the demand which the Opposition is advancing and with the object of which the Government agreed and is strongly working for, originated in a calculation soberly made by the Irish fishing industry in regard to its future. It is a demand which has been taken up by the Opposition and is being stridently pressed by them. In the noise generated by the making and the reiteration of this demand there are a few background features being lost sight of and there are some elements in the making of the demand which I think our people, whatever industry they are interested in or work in, should look at.
First, the Government is being called on very stridently and exigently to extract us from obligations into which our predecessors entered. I will concede—it is a point that is a principal part of our attitude on this question—that there has been a major extension of jurisdictional responsibilities, a major change in international law and possibilities of the kind which the developments of a few years have brought, such as virtual unanimity in the international community that there is such a thing as a 200-mile limit that will be generally agreed on. I accept that introduces a new element in the situation. It is very arguable, and it is a point which we are arguing, that against the background of this quite unforeseen circumstance the common fisheries policy to which we assented in 1972 should be renegotiated, and renegotiated having regard to the very strong social factors which apply with particular force in our case in regard to the economy of our west coast. That is a point which the Minister has been unwearying in making and it is a measure of the success with which he has been making that case and of his diligence in making it that the Opposition have to run so fast to keep up with us that we are debating this subject here twice within a week.
Understandably and naturally, we are being battered by the Opposition to extract what we hope to extract, a concession which, in fact, under the law, rightly or wrongly as it stands, we are not entitled to. I shall not make any cheap political points— cheap ones are ones made against you; substantial ones are ones you make—but it is only fair to say that it is not the case that the 200-mile limit which is now more or less universally part of the international law landscape was no more than a cloud on the horizon the size of a man's hand in 1972. That is not the case and a Government watching what it was doing and having regard to the long-term necessities of the Irish economy might—I do not say would—have had regard to this possibility because this was an area in which, unlike any other area, we would be called on to make a major contribution to the common pool of the European Community. In no other area would we be called on to contribute very substantially more than some of our richest partners— the case has been quite the opposite— but this was an area in which we might have said, had the Government of the day foreseen it—I make no special point of that—"This possibility will, or may involve us in contributing to a pool of some of the richest countries in the world an asset of enormous value and we must reserve the right, should we find ourselves in possession of that asset— because, as Deputy Haughey rightly says, nobody at that time had it—to hesitate before contributing it to the other states without regard to our own interests and in particular to the social importance of the fishing industry in areas which in other respects are highly disadvantaged." That was not done; it was neglected or omitted. But I think it is important or at least seemly for an Opposition which has that weakness in its stance—it was presiding over our accession and very strongly urged the people, as did my own party, to commit ourselves to European integration and Communities—a party which is now so strident and gleeful in pointing out what appear to be rocks or pitfalls in the way of our Foreign Minister, to put this topic in some perspective and admit what I never hear admitted in the context of the fisheries debate, that we have been very substantial beneficiaries as a people because of our adhesion to the EEC.
That is admitted.
The Deputy admits it when I mention it; he could scarcely deny it.
I made a speech along those lines six months ago.
I appreciate that but not in the fisheries context. The other House this afternoon debated a motion which was the same as the one debated here last week, to extend the limit to 200 miles for other states for fishery protection in general and, in the course of that debate—I hope I am not out of order in giving some general impressions—that relative state of our country being a beneficiary was never mentioned from the Opposition side. There was no word about the benefits. There were only terms of abuse for the partners who contribute from their own pockets to the benefits we enjoy. Terms of abuse were used against the Dutch, German, British and Danish people who were described as having raped, scraped, scoured and looted the sea bed. The sea bed which was under discussion then, at those points in the debate was not the sea bed under our territorial waters but the high seas in those days which were the common property of mankind.
I think the Parliamentary Secretary is quoting from something said in the Seanad today of which we have no knowledge and the people concerned are not here to defend themselves. Is he in order?
The Deputy quoted from the House of Commons a minute ago.
Yes, but that is on record.
I shall produce the record of this matter in due course.
The Parliamentary Secretary is paraphrasing.
If the House will tolerate——
Will the Parliamentary Secretary please have manners? I am raising a valid point of order. Is it in order for the Parliamentary Secretary to attack Senators on the basis that they said some things in the Seanad this afternoon?
The rule is that Members of either House do not refer in derogatory terms to Members, naming any Members of the other House.
We should have a little decorum.
I have named no names but I shall leave the subject for the moment. Another aspect of the matter which has been very much absent from the discussion in the heated atmosphere recently generated has been the sheer political and economic necessity of which, for once, we are the victims in this debate. We are the recipients of the brunt of it and it would be only fair and seemly if the circumstances were put squarely to the people.
The reason why the renegotiation of the common fisheries policy is so extremely difficult for our Foreign Minister, why he is meeting such ferocious opposition to what might appear to be a simple thing for the benefit of only a small fraction of Europe's population on our west coast is a reason never put before the people by the Opposition in this debate. It is that the very large fishing populations—they are not all fat capitalists; most of them, I presume, are ordinary fishermen, the same as our own, running the risks of the sea and suffering the same tragedies as ours—have been excluded because of the extension—the very thing we are talking about here—of conventional fishing limits in general in all countries to 200 miles. Because of that extension applied by Iceland, the Faroes, Norway and Denmark they have been pushed out of fishing grounds which they have fished since the Middle Ages and on which generations of their families have been reared. I am not weeping for British, French, German or Dutch fishermen —their own people can do that for them. We must think first, and all the time of our own but we are part of a community and it is only fair to our partners in the Community to recognise their difficulties and it is only decent in debate to make sure that the public have a clear and full picture of what we are discussing. It is not being made sufficiently clear that the reason why the renegotiation of fishery policies to get us what we are all looking for, namely a 50 mile exclusive limit, is that we are looking for that at the very moment the other northern European states of whose economy fishing is an important part, are most motivated to resist it because their own available waters have been so substantially squeezed. I hope that point will be understood.
I make the point, about the exigencies pressing on fishermen of our partners, on the one hand, and the point about our being very substantial net beneficiaries of the EEC of the other, in no way to weaken or throw in any kind of a doubtful light, or to make less respectable, the claims of our own fishing industry. This Government have given nothing but evidence of their determination to recognise the fact that we get a fishing regime which will give us an exclusive band and other measures to ensure that the fishing stocks on which the development of our industry will increasingly rely, will not be taken from under our noses. It is also essential, in fairness to ourselves that we may understand the world in which we are living, and in fairness to our partners from whom we are not ashamed to take money, to put these things into some perspective and weigh them up when deciding what tone of voice we will use when criticising failures, difficulties, pitfalls or snags, in a commitment which we freely laid upon ourselves in 1972.
Deputy Haughey stopped short of saying something which the senior Fianna Fáil speaker said in the Seanad today—that unless we got our way on this, we ought to think twice about staying in the Community.
I did not say that, and I had no intention of saying it.
I said the Deputy stopped short of saying it.
There is an implication that I would say it, but there is no way.
The Deputy did not say it and I accept that he does not think it. I heard that view expressed earlier today by a senior member of his party in the other House. I am not attacking him by saying so; I presume he is willing to take responsibility for his own words and see them quoted.
The Parliamentary Secretary is being very unfair in making that implication about me. I have always been a committed European.
I am sorry if the way I am trying to make this point appears to reflect on Deputy Haughey. I make it unequivocally clear that I do not accuse him of having any such wish or advocating any such policy. I am sorry if, by bringing him into this rhetorical turn intended to draw attention to another member of his party, I should have appeared to involve him. Nonetheless, it seems to me that there is no great clarity of mind about this in the Opposition, because I heard the firm statement a few hours ago that unless we got our way in this we ought to think again about our continued membership of the Community. The same Senator, who led Fianna Fáil in the Seanad, said that we should take a leaf out of the Icelanders' book and that opinion was echoed by another Fianna Fáil speaker.
No one looking at the cod war could fail to be stirred by what the Icelanders achieved. Common justice requires us to remember that they were out against not just the easily conjured up might of the British Empire, but against a lot of fishermen who were not to blame for the fact that they had been brought up in the supposition that there was nothing to stop them, in law or otherwise, from fishing in Icelandic waters or in waters within 200 miles of the coast of Iceland. The spirit and determination showed by the Icelanders was admirable.
To say in one of these Houses that we should take a leaf out of their book ignores the fact that the Icelanders have no partners in a community. They are not part of any European Economic Community. They have no one to look out for but themselves. If they observe the laws of humanity and other international laws, good luck to them. To suggest that we take a leaf out of their book ignores completely the difference of the situation between that country and this. It may not be intended by Fianna Fáil Senators or Deputies, but I say it is irresponsible to try to soup-up feeling here to the point where the Government will be expected to behave as the Government of Iceland did.
There are legal constraints on us, and constraints from the consequences of which we have derived very considerable benefits, which prevent us from emulating the Icelanders. We cannot do it and the reasons must be clearly stated. We are committed to a regime of partnership which carries some disadvantages as well as very considerable advantages, and the Icelanders are not. The disadvantages in this case will not be borne by anybody but a small number of people— fishermen. I do not forget that fact. The fishing industry, like any other industry big or small, is entitled to be defended by whatever Government are in power. I say that because I hope I will not be accused of making little of the disadvantages of our membership merely because it will fall on a relatively small number of people. They are as entitled to protection as the bigger section of the community— the farmers or industrial workers.
I wished to draw the attention of the House to the general features of this debate. It is important to make these points, even though they have been made before. I have noticed them surfacing so much in the debate that we must keep this matter in some perspective and we must have regard to the fact that we cannot go into a community, derive benefits from it and cry when we are called on to make some sacrifice.
I want to make it clear again that I and the Government see the merit in Deputy Haughey's and Deputy O'Kennedy's argument. It is part of the Government's case that we must be allowed to renegotiate the fishery policy in such a way as to take account of the necessity for its future development. There can be no future development if our resources are worked out, or harvested in such a way that the capacity of fish species to reproduce themselves is extinguished. That cannot be allowed and we will not go along with it. The House may remain assured that the efforts of the Government, the Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Parliamentary Secretary in charge of fisheries will not be relaxed, nothing will be left undone and no effort will be left unapplied in order to secure specifically the outcome of a 50-mile band.
That is all I want to say in general terms about the situation in regard to our exclusive fishery limit and the political atmosphere which has been generated around this question—in my view generated somewhat belatedly. It is a legitimate and important area of debate and I would like the fight to take place in a fairer, more reasonable and more generous atmosphere than it has appeared to do so up to now.
I want to make it plain, and I am given a lead into this by what Deputy Haughey said a few minutes ago about the British Parliament, that, apart from the reality of lobbies, this Bill cannot pass through this House without doing radical damage to other parts of our law to which it is repugnant and with which it is not consistent.
In a nutshell, the difference between the British and Irish here is that unlike the British we have written into our law, into the European Communities Act of 1972 which was enacted by the Oireachtas before the last change of Government, a provision that Community regulations apply directly here as though they were domestic law, and they will override domestic law as is laid down in one of the articles of the Treaty of Rome and subsequently applied by the European Court in two cases, to the effect that they will override even new legislation. In other words, for so long as Community law obliges us to share territorial waters with other member states, a Bill of this kind is repugnant not just to Community law but to our law as well because the Community law applies directly here, as the Drogheda Boundary (Confirmation) Bill which was passed here today——
What is the Community law?
The essence of this Bill is to give ourselves a regime in regard to the first 50 miles from our base line, contrary to what Community law provides for, and it could only be made consistent with our own law, leave alone Community law, by amending the 1972 Act, and once section 2 of the European Communities Act is repealed or amended we will not be in the European Community at all.
The Parliamentary Secretary has said that it is in conflict with Community law. Which Community law?
Regulation 217/70, and subsequently consolidated. That law is not consistent—it should be, but in our opinion it is not—with an exclusive 50-mile limit.
The British think it is.
The British do not. The only way to make this thing square with our own law is by substantially amending our 1972 Act, and if we did that we might as well not be in the Community at all. It would be equivalent to pulling out of the EEC.
Nonsense.
The Deputy was very angry with the Minister for Foreign Affairs for having been so angry with him for saying the Minister was deceiving the House. Several columns of the Official Report were wasted on that exchange last week. I hope the Deputy, who is such an advocate of cut and trust in parliamentary politics, will put up with it if I say he is deceiving the House by creating the impression that the British are about to impose an exclusive 50-mile limit, if that is what he means. That is the impression that was created and perhaps intended to be created. If the Deputy means that the British are on the point of declaring an exclusive 50-mile zone from which they will exclude everyone else, I should like him to say that plainly so that he can be shown to be wrong.
What I said is that the British have legislated to give themselves the power to designate by order a regime which will be established with a new limit and that therefore they regard themselves as free to so legislate in the British Parliament. I did not say what they are going to do or what they are not going to do. I merely said that they think they have the legal right to do this, that they have so legislated, and so have we.
They do not say they think they have the legal right to do it. If I understand correctly the way the British work, if they were to do so unilaterally no English court would be able to rule them out, but we cannot do it that way because although it might square with our internal laws it would be in conflict with our Community obligations which are canonised, so to speak, in our own law. In Britain they have a different way of doing it. I will take the Deputy's word for it that the British have given themselves the power to draw a 50-mile limit. We have that power too, if we look at the four corners of Irish law, but if we apply that power we are doing something which is what the Bill seeks to do, namely to do something which is in conflict with the rest of our law and, because the European law is canonised by our law, it is in conflict with that also, whereas if the British want to do it they will be in conflict only with European law and they would have to argue it in some tribunal outside their country. Whether I am right or wrong in that off-the-cuff distinction, I want to draw attention to the implication that the British are about to do what this Bill proposes to do.
I made no such implication.
Then I do not see what the relevance of it is because we have exactly the same power as the Deputy says the British are about to give themselves.
The British do not regard Community law as preventing them from legislating for the new areas. They do not consider that there is any Community law which stops them from so legislating.
Rightly or wrongly, the Deputy gave the impression that the British were about to keep stretches of water to themselves and that we were not, although our legal situation within the Community is the same. I do not believe that. Carefully concealed in section 2 (1) of this Bill is a characteristic attempt to have something both ways. It states:
Fishing in that portion of the exclusive fishery limits of the State
which lies inside the line every point of which is at a distance of fifty nautical miles from the nearest point of the baseline shall be restricted exclusively to vessels operating from ports in the State.
Usually, phrases like that, which are the guts of the Act, are defined in a definition section. That phrase is not explained and there is no part of our fishery legislation which can be used to construe it. In other words, if this Bill became law, a judge would be asked to explain what "operating from ports in the State" means. Does it mean that only Irish fishermen who are domiciled in ports of the State, or does it mean something less than that? Does it mean people who land fish at the port and go sailing off again? If so, this Bill is absolutely useless, even from the Fianna Fáil point of view.
The wording is orthodox. It is well recognised fishery legislation terminology.
The more I listen to the Parliamentary Secretary and read the observations of the Minister for Foreign Affairs on this subject the more I become alarmed at the Government's attitude. If one had been listening carefully to the Parliamentary Secretary one would readily have perceived the uncertainty in his attitude about what we consider to be a straightforward right that must be procured for Irish fishermen, the exclusive right to fish the inner 50-mile zone of our waters.
A great deal of the burden of what the Parliamentary Secretary, Deputy John Kelly, had to contribute to this debate, along with being testy, petulant and over-defensive, fell a great deal short of that. There was a great deal of excusing, of pointing out that we as distinct from the Icelanders for instance, were members of a community and had to accept the obligations of a community. The inference was very plain that we would have to settle for a good deal less than the demand of not only the fishermen and the people in the fishing industry but, I would say, the whole nation, because this has become quite a national issue. There is a great deal of evidence in the study and contemplation of what Deputy Kelly, the Parliamentary Secretary, has just had to say that would demonstrate that the Government have surrendered on this issue already to some extent at any rate. The posturings of the Minister for Foreign Affairs—I understand he is in Moscow now—are to a great degree diversionary, just to keep the show on the road and to implant gradually the idea that something less than the simple demand of the fishing industry for an exclusive 50-mile limit will eventually have to be accepted.
The concession by the EEC of the right to the Irish fishing industry to double their catch—if they are able to double their catch in competition with Community fishing vessels from all over the Community in their own waters—is trumpeted by the Minister for Foreign Affairs as if it were a really wonderful victory. If we assume that the industry had the capacity to expand and the ability to enlarge itself to the degree that the catch could in time be doubled, that doubling would have to take place in competition with vessels from the other countries in the Community whose presence in Irish waters seems to be accepted as a foregone conclusion by the Minister and by the Parliamentary Secretary as well.
The optics are different. I was looking through the record of the proceedings of this House for the 8th December, 1976, in Volume 295, columns 365 and 366 of the Official Report. The Minister for Foreign Affairs devotes a great deal of attention to the strange reporting of discussions by the European Parliament in October of a motion from a British Labour Party Deputy, Mr. Prescott, from either Hull or Fleetwood, which proposed the establishment in the Community of what he called conservation service which would allow fishing quotas to Community vessels in the conservation zones. This was supported by Deputy Kavanagh of the Labour Party. The Fine Gael members of the Parliament were not present at all. The motion was opposed by the Fianna Fáil Deputies who were immediately accused by Radio Éireann to begin with and other media people thereafter of failing to support the 50-mile zone for Irish fishermen. What the Fianna Fáil group very conscientiously and deliberately did was they withheld support from a proposal which would bring Community fishermen into the six-mile limit, into the shore-line of Irish fishery waters under Deputy Liam Kavanagh's and his socialist friend Mr. Prescott's motion. Lo and behold, the Minister for Foreign Affairs in the columns of the Official Report that I have referred to returns to this bending and twisting of the facts in seeking to represent that the Fianna Fáil Deputies in the European Parliament failed the fishing industry in some way or other.
Of course, the facts are quite the reverse. One solitary Government Deputy of the five in the European Parliament at that time—all the others were absent for some reason or other— supported the motion from the British socialist groups in the European Parliament which would permit the fishing of Irish waters by British fishermen, French, German, Dutch, Danish, the lot, and Fianna Fáil were accused of failing the Irish fishermen because they opposed this. That was the situation.
Why should the Minister for Foreign Affairs want to misrepresent the position so? The record of the European Parliament is there for anyone who wants to consult it. It is quite clear tonight, listening to the Parliamentary Secretary, Deputy Kelly, that they want to divert attention from their own disbelief in the possibility of securing the exclusive 50-mile limit for Irish fishermen and Irish fishermen alone of their own waters.
The Parliamentary Secretary referred at great length to the impositions and obligations that membership of the Community imposed. We must accept the obligations of community. Very well then, the Commission proposal is that the Community will share out Irish fishery waters amongst themselves and the Irish will get a share. That is the proposition being supported by the Parliamentary Secretary.
Simultaneously on another front the Irish Government are looking for some recompense because they are not allowed to share the market place for farm produce that all the other countries of the Community are allowed to do. Irish food producers, whether they be producers of meat or dairy products, must pay enormous monetary compensatory amounts to the European Community before they are allowed into the European Market. The Treaty of Accession very clearly gives the right of access to the markets after the accession period. We are paying accession monetary compensatory amounts as well. The level of the monetary compensatory amounts at present is anything between £80 and £100 per steer going on to the European Market. We are not allowed the freedom of the market place by the Community that the Parliamentary Secretary is so anxious that we should bear the burden for.
There is a very dire, clear and visible need, visible not only to Irishmen but to all fair-minded Europeans as well, on all kinds of social grounds. The great social need in Ireland is for the exclusive protection of Irish fisheries for Irish people. On conservation grounds as well as for Community purposes it is vital that the fishing stocks be allowed to breed and propagate in a lightly-fished area as we would like Irish fishery waters to be if they were confined to Irish fishermen alone to fish in. We are making that case for fisheries.
We ought to be making the case— I do not think we are doing it very effectively—that if membership of the Community imposes obligations it also confers rights. One of the basic rights would be access to the market place with our food products. I am sure the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries knows very well, as every other Deputy in the House does, that we do not have this free access to the market place. We have to pay crushing border taxes before we are allowed to enter into the European market. Therefore the concern of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Taoiseach with the niceties of our obligations to the Community is quite touching in the context of the brutal refusal of the Community to permit us to sell our goods on equal terms with the other members of the Community and the Community market. The reality is that in every country but ours, probably, there is an over-developed fishing capacity which has fished out all the available fish in their own coastal waters.
This applies to the Germans, the Dutch, the Belgians, the French, the Danes and the British. Simultaneously, the Norwegians have given notice of their intention to establish a 200-mile limit. The Canadians and the United States Government have given similar notices as, of course, have the Icelandic Government, very important and vital in the case of the British fishermen who are fishing for their very valuable cod fisheries in the Canadian and American waters. They will be driven out of those waters. All this over-fishing of the fishing capacity of the other members of the Community means that they will turn their greedy eyes on Irish waters and begin to share out with the Irish what belongs to the Irish. We are being tuttutted by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Taoiseach because in protesting that those fisheries belong to the Irish alone we are in some way antiCommunity or falling short of our obligations as Community members. This is not so.
The sooner we realise our feeble position, both in numbers and in political muscle within the European Community, the sooner reality will find its way into the thinking of the Government. One has only to look at the peculiar Community behaviour of Governments like the Italian Governments who introduced 50 per cent import deposit schemes without consulting anybody and had them ratified retrospectively by the Community when they had done it for six months in order to shore up their economy. We have only to look at the antics of the French over many years. We have only to look at the arrival of the British in the Community, which was followed almost immediately by a process called renegotiation and the first referendum that was ever held in England as to whether they would stay in the Community. We have only to think of these things to realise that however idealistic the Parliamentary Secretary to the Taoiseach or the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries might be, the reality is that unless a vigorous line is taken to protect national interests in the Community, in its present development at any rate, our national interests will go under to the stronger opposition that we encounter.
Contemplation of the contribution made last week by the Minister for Foreign Affairs and tonight by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Taoiseach must fill the Irish fishing industry with a great deal of apprehension and dread because written plainly and largely across every word he said is a fear and a doubt in the cause they profess to serve. I do not see why the Parliamentary Secretary and the Minister should simultaneously show such commendable zeal from the Community action point of view and at the same time boggle so badly at the knees in relation to the vital defence of this rightful demand of our fishing industry. They tried to wrap the robe of Community responsibility around themselves and say that the Irish must not be selfish and must not demand what belongs to them for themselves but must share it with our greedy neighbours. At the same time they must accept being shut out of the Community market by those same Community partners.
There is a great inconsistency in the attitude of the Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Taoiseach. I call it to the attention of the Irish fishing industry because it appears that there is a great need for them again to underline to the Government the undeniable and fundamental need there is to secure a no nonsense 50-mile exclusive limit for the reasons I have been discussing and that nothing else will do. Notable in the contributions of the Minister and of the Parliamentary Secretary was their great preoccupation with the legalities. I accept that the Parliamentary Secretary is a professor of law and that the Minister is also an academically qualified person but perhaps they fell into the trap of being over-preoccupied in their academic fields. I was a bit dismayed by the absence from what they said of any expressed concern about the people actually involved in this, the people who catch the fish and whose living is made from fish. The Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary were more concerned about the niceties of the legal position and whether or not the quotations from Hansard by my colleague, Deputy Haughey, were in place in a discussion on fisheries.
We are discussing the right of a section of our people to live in their own country from their own resources and the expansion of those resources in the future for the people of this country. It was quite obscure in the contributions of the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary that there was any particular preoccupation with this. I seriously suspect that there is a kind of an unspoken tacit readiness to retreat, a line I believe to be defensive and which I believe is not quite possible or feasible to hold.
