Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 3 Dec 1981

Vol. 331 No. 6

Supplementary Estimates, 1981. - Vote 37: Fisheries.

Minister for Fisheries (Mr. Fitzpatrick,

Cavan-Monaghan): I move:

That a supplementary sum not exceeding £10 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of December, 1981, for the salaries and expenses of the Office of the Minister for Fisheries and Forestry, including sundry grants-in-aid.

Total additional expenditure over that provided for in the Estimates comes to £1,860,000 but taking into account additional receipts of £134,990 and savings on some subheads totalling £1,725,000 we are left with a token provision of £10 to be met under this Supplementary Estimate.

The increases in staff costs shown in subhead A. over the original estimate arise from special pay increase which could not be provided for and increases in travelling and subsistence rates which are amended from time to time in line with inflation.

However, the major item of additional expenditure is under subhead D.1. which is the provision for payment of a grant-in-aid to An Bord Iascaigh Mhara in respect of administration and current development. Of the additional expenditure of £1,664,000 involved here, £400,000 is to restore the interest subsidy to purchasers of fishing boats to the level obtaining in previous years. The previous Government, prior to the Budget last February, specifically reduced Bord Iascaigh Mhara's allocation for interest subsidisation to fishermen for this year by this amount, which would have had the effect of increasing the interest rates payable by skippers in respect of loans from BIM. Having regard to the depressed state of the industry at the time the previous administration retracted this decision on 15 April last and decided to restore the cut £400,000 in due time but did not ask the House to vote the necessary money. In effect they took it out before the Budget, restored it afterwards but did not provide the money to pay for it. The present Government are happy to be in a position, despite the current difficulties, to make these funds available.

A further £1.2 million is in respect of the aid package approved by this Government as a temporary measure to meet current difficulties prevailing in the industry, specifically in respect of additional interest subvention on boat loans which is being operated so as to: (a) eliminate all interest in respect of BIM loan accounts for virtually the whole of this year; (b) provide an extra 5 per cent subsidy on interest payments on loans made available by banks to purchasers of fishing vessels up to a maximum of £15,000 per boat; and (c) provide a subvention of 5 per cent on interest payments on vessels purchased outside BIM's marine credit plan.

I should mention that a further £400,000 in aid is being made available by way of rebate of duty on fuel used in fishing boats through the Revenue Commissioners. This, of course, is not taken into account in framing this Supplementary Estimate. The balance of £64,000 under D.1. is in respect of special pay awards to BIM staff which have been sanctioned by the Department of the Public Service.

As regards subhead E.1. — Inland Fisheries Development — the bulk of the £136,000 excess is due to an estimated shortfall of about £100,000 in receipts from the salmon levy and from registration fees which did not reach expectation. The excess also covers the cost of holding the first elections of members to the seven regional fisheries boards which was not provided for and of increased PRSI contributions which came into effect on 1 April, 1981. It was, of course, quite obvious to the previous Government that elections would be held this year and that they would cost money but no provision was made for them. Similarly PRSI contributions were increased by the previous Government but no provision was made to pay for them.

As I have indicated, these excesses on the Vote are now being met by savings under other heads and increased receipts. These savings arise under the headings of harbour works — subhead C.2. — construction of an exploratory fishing vessel — subhead C.4. — and the capital grant to BIM — subhead D.2. Estimation of the cost of harbour works is difficult and the expected savings of £126,000 on subhead C.2. represents less than 3 per cent of the total amount voted.

A sum of £999,990 is saved under subhead C.4. which provided for expenditure on the construction of a new fisheries research vessel for the Department. The cost of this is now to be met under a leasing arrangement and capital expenditure by the Department will not arise. Negotiations on the contract price on the vessel are at an advanced stage and I hope to be shortly in a position to announce the placing of the building contract.

The savings of £600,010 on subhead D.2. arise mainly as a result of grants for boats, gear and maricultural projects not being fully taken up in the current year.

The increased receipts under subhead I. are attributable to the imposition by the courts in recent cases of illegal fishing of severe financial penalties in line with those provided for in the Fisheries Amendment Act, 1978. Several cases were pending legal procedures of one kind or another, but these and some new cases have been disposed of with considerable success and profit for the State.

I recommend this Supplementary Estimate to the House.

Mr. Power

I am surprised that the Minister did not deal with the fishing industry in a little more detail. I am not surprised that he should use this opportunity as a springboard on which to make political points. On three occasions he mentioned that expenses arose during the year for which his predecessor did not make provision. I shall deal with that during the course of my remarks.

The industry in general is aware that anything we promised we did and we would have been prepared to pay for that but for a quirk of fate that sees the Minister in the position he is now in. Any supplementary estimate for fisheries today can be introduced only with a great sense of insecurity and uncertainty about the whole future of the fishing industry in Ireland. Whatever we plan to do must be overshadowed by the continuing failure of the member states to agree on a common fisheries policy. I am not blaming the Minister or any of his predecessors and I feel that I am not to blame for any failure to decide on a common fisheries policy. It is my experience, and the Minister will agree, that Ireland has been a good European member since we joined the EEC. We have abided by the rules, but by the end of 1981 the ordinary Irish fisherman can say that as far as he is concerned the EEC is a farce and can be seen only as a very cynical exercise in international political window-dressing, and Ireland's fishing industry and its future are very much pawns in that game.

It is high time for the fishery Ministers in all the member states to stand back and have a look at themselves and at the record for many years. I know that people will point to the benefits that fishing is supposed to have gained and say that because of the Hague agreement we were allowed to double our catch in 1980. It was a target which we achieved and great credit is due to everyone concerned for that, but our percentage of the total catch is very small, even when it is doubled. There is not a great difference between 2 per cent and 4 per cent and when you think of the other 96 per cent and 98 per cent it is not significant in the total European context. We got some price supports and some funding for fishery protection, but my experience leads me to believe that some states are not serious about achieving a common fisheries policy. We spent monthly meeting after monthly meeting haggling over total allowable catches and quotas. We spent a lot of time also talking about a breakdown in the quota species, give a little here, take a little there, and how it should be divvied up. There was a very big debate about that. Did it really mean anything?

The decision to introduce a system of monitoring catches was hailed as a big breakthrough. There was talk of a logbook to be introduced to enable catches to be monitored and we wondered what type of people would go aboard these other vessels to check them and how they would go down into the hold and recognise frozen blocks of fish for what they were. To me that is farcical. Will it ever become a reality or is all this talk of a logbook and monitoring catches like the paper fish which appear in statistics but which have no bearing whatever on the catches we talk about?

We have worked towards a solution to the common fisheries policy. We waded through lengthy negotiations with our nearest neighbours, Britain and France. We talked at length about our traditional rights and how to reconcile divergent opinions and wishes in this regard. To give Britain, Peter Walker and Alec Buchanan-Smith their due, they were serious about it and made constructive attempts to reach satisfactory conclusions. However, at that time we saw how ineffective we were because third countries' imports destroyed our prices at home and it took us a year to have curbs imposed on them because the multinationals who had a vested interest in Canadian waters wanted their pound of flesh — tons of fish would be a better phrase — first. This time last year it appeared that many of our problems had been solved and that the only major problem standing in the way of a common fisheries policy was that of access.

I was naïve enough to think that that was the last hurdle. Then it appeared an election was coming up in one of the member states and there would be no hope of reaching a solution. Everything broke down and fishermen had to take second place to politicians. Indeed, with all the member states there is bound to be an election in some of them every year. The Minister himself will probably be faced with an election next year and I am not referring only to the Cavan-Monaghan by-election. I would be prepared to bet that he will be faced with a general election, but I am sure that will not stand in his way of going ahead and endeavouring to resolve this situation once and for all.

The Fisheries Council meeting which was to be held this very month cannot now be held because the saga of petty jealously and ill-concealed greed continues. Some member states have raked the bottom of their own sea beds for fish not only to consume but also to turn into fish meal, and now they are trying to do the same Hoover-type exercise around our coasts. They are very much in character with their seafaring forefathers, but, to give those old sea-robbers their due, they had the decency at least to wear horns on their helmets and thereby were recognised easily for what they were. Today's generation hide behind EEC directives and mounds of EEC documentation and monthly meetings interspersed with meaningless talk.

It is time now for all Ministers to grow up, face their responsibilities and forget about the Hans Christian Andersen bit. It is time for the fisheries Ministers to deal with the problems they have. They have the duty to give existing fishermen in Europe a decent standard of living and ensure that their families in the years to come will be able to live off the sea. Until that is done it will be impossible to get Irish fishermen to accept that the EEC has been of any real benefit to them. We may have got an occasional lollipop but we need security for the future and we need to see Community preference honoured for what it is and what it should mean.

No matter what money we pour into it here at home in supplementary estimates and annual estimates, the future for Irish fishing is very much in jeopardy, first of all because of the lack of a common fisheries policy, and secondly because of the destruction and decimation of our stocks. My information is that on 1 and 2 December, yesterday and the day before, Dutch, German and British ships were fishing illegally six miles off Tory Island. Probably they were chasing our mackerel stocks. They are interested in a short-time gain, but they will decimate the mackerel stocks, as the herring stocks have been fished out. I am not blaming the corvette. Our fishery protection is inadequate. I am told that the corvette was in Rathmullan, probably keeping an eye on freezer ships and seeing that the rules that we would like to see implemented are put into effect.

At the moment we are very dependent on mackerel for our catches, and since curbs and restrictions were put on herring fishing all our eggs are in the one basket as far as mackerel is concerned. Can the present mackerel stocks sustain the amount of fishing to which they are subjected? I know the increase in mackerel catching was a very big boon to our super-trawlers because they were in a position to avail of this catch, to go further to sea to follow the mackerel and to extend the mackerel fishing season from two months to possibly nine months. There was a false impression as to the value of the catch and the amount of people who benefited from the doubling of our catch and the quotas we caught. The super-trawlers served an important purpose in so far as they gave our processors continuity of supply, which enabled them to expand their processing facilities, increase their capacity and export frozen mackerel to African States where we have a lucrative and insatiable market. I do not think the number of super-trawlers which we have would deplete our stocks of mackerel, they are probably an aid in ensuring that we catch the quota allocated to us but, if the vulture-type of fishing which now operates is allowed to continue in mackerel stocks particularly off the north western, Galway and Mayo coasts, it will destroy the stocks and eventually there will not be a living there for our own fleet.

With regard to a common fisheries policy, I would ask the Minister if there is an overall political will in the EEC to formulate and implement a policy. I have seen no great evidence of this so far and, if there is no political will to bring it about, there will be no future for Irish sea fishing. The Minister mentioned some matters which will engage his attention during the coming year. We should ask ourselves what our national plans are for the future. Shortly before we left office we introduced a subsidy scheme to prop up prices. That has been a help but only in the short-term. We also introduced a subsidy scheme for diesel oil and a pension scheme for fishermen who could retire at 50 years. To a landlubber that may seem early but, to a fisherman who is engaged in a very strenuous life, 50 years is about right. Any fisherman is entitled to be ashore at that age.

The Minister did not say that because of different periods when boats had been bought and loans granted, there was a great discrepancy between the interest rates paid by different skippers of different boats. It was for the purpose of equalising the terms that were offered to them and giving equal treatment to everyone that the subsidies were changed in the last budget. I am sure the Minister for Finance had cutbacks in mind also but it was one of the matters we decided to embark on and then found during the course of the year, principally because of the big drop in fish prices, that the fishing industry was in need of further propping up, and subsidies were restored.

I am happy that the Government are in a position to make funds available. I assure those in the fishing industry for whom we took this measure that we would also have paid for it. Where do we go from here? What will our policies be in the future? I notice the Sea Fisheries (Amendment) Bill, which has not yet been reached, proposes to raise the loan from £15 million to £40 million to BIM. I presume this money will be used to build up our fleet. Two years ago six super-trawlers came into our fleet and the money involved was very great. Unfortunately, most of it was spent away from home. It can be said they have proved their worth. At the time those trawlers entered our fleet, we succeeded in Brussels in getting the total allowable catch and the species catch of 45,000 tonnes of mackerel raised to 51,000 tonnes. Members of a certain organisation which speaks on behalf of fishermen indicated it was not enough and that we would need a quota of twice that amount. I expressed the view that we might be lucky to catch that during the course of the year and I was proved right because that was the amount of mackerel we succeeded in landing that year. It may be all right for general secretaries or paid officials of pressure groups to make hysterical statements but Ministers have to be more realistic. The fact that we are realistic will strengthen the Minister's hand when he goes abroad. He proved we were capable of attaining what we had sought before.

In all probability we have achieved the quota we are likely to be allowed from now on. I hope we will get annual increments to enable us to develop our fleet because we have the least developed fleet in Europe. That is tragic for a country which is surrounded by water but we must ask ourselves what is the likely quota we will be allowed to catch, what is the capacity of our existing fleet and what we should do with it? There is a dangerous opinion that we should bring in more super-trawlers. We have embarked on a plan where anything over 90 feet only gets a grant of 25 per cent and up to 90 feet there is a grant of 50 per cent. That is an expression of the Departmental will to encourage smaller-type vessels. Some people may see it as a restriction on fishermen but it is a decision that had to be made. Do you make a few people very rich and put others out of business or do you endeavour to give traditional fishermen a reasonable livelihood? We should now modernise our existing fleet by giving them better gear and equipment and making them more efficient. That is where money should be spent at home rather than going abroad.

I also see a big future in mariculture. If our quotas for sea fishing are limited to a certain percentage, our potential for mariculture is unlimited. At present it is in its infancy. Commercial propositions are now going ahead reasonably well in the cage-rearing of shellfish with the emphasis on oysters, mussels and scallops.

I hope that local co-operatives around our coasts will get more encouragement. They have been reasonably well encouraged. More smallholders and part-time fishermen should be in a position to supplement their incomes by engaging in these activities with the co-operatives. I have expressed the opinion, with which the Minister concurs, that it should be our policy to help the smallholders rather than bigger combines, as far as mariculture is concerned.

The freezer-ships in Rathmullen are necessary until we have the capacity on shore of processing our catches. They are necessary during this transition period, and I hope that the quantity taken on board will be closely monitored and that all catches will still have to be offered for auction on shore. Irish fishermen have now proved their ability to catch fish in quantities which will give processors the confidence to invest in more concrete buildings on shore. I do not confine this to Killybegs or the other Donegal ports, but see the joint venture which we have entered into with a Spanish company in Castletownbere as having marvellous potential. The expansion in Donegal is, possibly, a headline for the rest of the country. Local processors are doing very good work there. I would like to see the day when the maximum amount of added value is given to our catch here in Ireland and fully processed at home. Rossaveal will eventually prove to be the proper location for a fishing centre. I happened to visit it for the first time this summer and am confident that the right decision was made to site the centre there. It has a great future and has an ideal location on the west coast.

I wish to express my thanks to the committee who have been of great assistance to the Department, giving their work voluntarily in the planning which is entailed. It is important that in any harbour development there should be a considerable amount of planning and much more liaison than obtains at present. Much work has been done in Killybegs — the auction hall, the ice plant and other extensions. Anyone would have to express a certain amount of disappointment at the failure to provide an overall plan and to finish the shore road to allow traffic to flow freely there. There is a need for greater liaison between the Department of Fisheries, the Department of the Environment — with the involvement of the local county council — and the Department of Finance. For instance, two years ago when the fleet of super-trawlers arrived in Killybegs, there was no provision for berthage and landing of fish. At that time, one could be assured of 17 feet or 18 feet of water, when the requirement for a boat coming in was at least 22 feet. That created problems and immediately made it imperative for the Government of the day to find sufficient money to dredge and to provide space for the boats to utilise the port and land their catches. It is important that haphazard planning such as that should not happen. We should have a complete infrastructural package catering for every aspect of the fishing industry.

I hope that the Howth scheme will go ahead and that the present progress and amicable relations with all concerned will continue. I would like a revitalisation in Dunmore East and Kilmore. I hope that the herring stocks will continue to improve and that the Celtic Sea will be opened to further fishing during the coming year. Fishermen should appreciate that it was only because of intense pressure that the limited opening of 1,000 lbs which we succeeded in getting earlier this year is available. It is either that or nothing. It would appear that some greedy people, in expressing disappointment at the decision, would have preferred nothing. It was a limited opening which will benefit small boats and will, it is hoped, allow consistent monitoring which will prove that the herring stock is there, to enable bigger boats to fish and make a greater catch available next year.

The fact that I have mentioned only bigger fishery harbours should not be taken to mean that we should confine our activities to these centres. We had a programme of improvements of small ports around our coast. Any small port which has proved that it warrants improvement because of its landings and has a potential to expand deserves to be also included in a programme of improvements. I am thinking particularly of areas like Dingle, possibly Ballydavid, and Clogher Head.

In relation to inshore fishermen, the Minister mentioned the elections which will be held this year. Whatever about the problems of sea fishing, inshore fishermen and salmon fishing are the most emotive facets of the fishing industry. It was necessary to bring a certain degree of uniformity to the fishing industry. There was not much uniformity in the Kerry and West Cork areas, with six salmon-fishing licences in Kerry and many more in West Cork. The man who can claim credit for the licences in West Cork is no longer with us. I hope that he is enjoying his retirement. He continually gave me the works from this side of the House when I was Minister, by referring to the fact that I lived in a landlocked constituency. I hope that nobody will make a similar reference to the present Minister. He has a lot more water around him than we have in Kildare.

Mr. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan-Monaghan): Ireland's two major rivers rise in my constituency and flow to the sea.

Mr. Power

The Minister has the Shannon Pot.

Mr. Deasy

He was referred to as the ancient mariner.

Mr. Power

We have a duty to try to make people accept that the law is there to protect rather than hinder them. When it is so obviously twisted that it cannot be construed as such, it is up to the Government of the day to grasp the nettles and take the necessary decisions such as we took.

Mr. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan-Monaghan): Your Government did not take any in the last couple of years.

Mr. Power

Elections to the new regional board are due. The people appointed have finished a year in office since the foundation. They have, in the main, taken their job seriously and laid the groundwork for future improvements and development. It should be the job of the regional boards to accommodate all types of fishermen and give everybody equal rights. That is a difficult thing to do when certain privileged people feel that they, and only they, have a divine right to fish.

If the boards are properly set up everyone's viewpoint will be listened to. When the plans are formulated by the different boards there will be requests for money and budgets will have to be met. This will ensure that plans for the betterment of the fishing industry will not be stifled. I know some of the members of these new boards and they have a certain idealism and zeal. Nothing would be more likely to frustrate that than lack of money and seeing plans set up for the general good of the industry shelved. It is to be hoped that the different regions will submit their plans to the central board to be examined and monitored and that the best of what is happening can be used to formulate an overall policy for the whole country.

One matter, which is possibly much nearer home to the Minister, is the question of pollution. This affects all boards. We will have to seriously get down to solving this problem to ensure that we have clean water for our fish in the future. If we are to do this the question of planning of farm buildings and effluent will have to be tackled. The Departments involved will have to get together and formulate a policy to ensure that the work being done by the Minister's Department will not be undermined by haphazard planning and work done in another Department. The plan that we set in train at Lough Sheelin should be looked on as a pilot project. It was a very good effort to overcome the problems at Lough Sheelin. I would hope that the momentum will not be lost. It is important for county councils to realise that the new legislation is serious and that we intend to do away with pollution in Ireland. Money must be provided to administer this, and therefore penalties will be imposed if the legislation is flouted.

The Minister mentioned the salmon levy. It is to be hoped that the money from that will go towards implementing plans in the various regions. I hope that the programme of restocking our rivers will be embarked upon. One of the projects we had concerned cross-Border co-operation and I hope that this will be continued.

We have a duty to do everything we can to ensure that our present fish stocks are maintained. We are fortunate to have fish in our rivers which are still relatively clean in comparison with those of other countries. This is possibly due to our delay in being part of the industrial revolution rather than to any innate cleanliness on the part of the Irish people. But we have a duty to be serious about this and to retain the fish population of our rivers and the abundant fish stocks around our coast.

Mr. Deasy

I welcome the opportunity to take part in this debate on the Supplementary Estimate for the Department of Fisheries and Forestry. I regret that the time allowed is so short, as I am sure a number of other Deputies wished to contribute.

First I want to sound a note of warning about the serious threat to the mackerel stocks around the coast. There is provision for £900,000 for a new research vessel. This is badly needed because we do not really know what quantities we have around our coast and depend on very hazy forecasts or assessments of various international bodies to tell us what the exact stocks are.

In the middle sixties, late sixties and early seventies the main fishery here was the herring fishery in the Celtic Sea and the main fishing port was Dunmore East. But heavy over-fishing of this stock almost exterminated it. I do not want to see the same thing happening to the mackerel stocks. Unfortunately, I am afraid that this is going to be the case unless stringent measures are taken by the Minister and by the EEC. I am not convinced that those measures are being taken at present. The catches are above an acceptable level. I would point to some statistics produced by the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea, which is the authority on these matters. In 1973 the mackerel stock of the West European coast — I refer to the area from the Faroe Islands down to Cornwall — was estimated at 3.5 million tonnes; in 1981 that stock had been reduced to 1.7 million tonnes, by more than half. We are told by the fishery experts here that some years the catches made are more than twice what is advised should be made. I am also told that the number of under-sized mackerel which are being caught gives cause for alarm. We are doing to our mackerel fisheries what we did to our herring stocks in years gone by. I do not want to see Killybegs become as redundant as Dunmore East. Ten or 15 years ago Dunmore East was a thriving port. It was not unusual to see up to 100 trawlers there landing herring. Nowadays there is not one boat landing herring. It is almost a ghost port. The same will happen to Killybegs unless we are careful.

I have emphasised in this House on several occasions, and wish to do so again today, that the use of purse seine nets for fishing mackerel is ill advised and merits serious consideration by the experts in the Minister's Department. This is a deadly method of fishing, and the stocks will not be sustained if it is allowed to continue. This method of fishing has been banned in a number of other countries because it is regarded as being unfair and responsible for the extermination of stocks; the whole shoal is encircled and trapped and it is wiped out. I would like to voice my concern about what I consider to be over-fishing of mackerel stocks in this general area, off the West coast of Europe and particularly around the Irish coast. Nobody can be absolutely sure of the amount of stocks involved because the method of assessing these stocks is quite amateurish. A research boat, such as is provided for in this Estimate, is badly needed, but it was alarming to read about the size of mackerel stocks. In 1970 the amount of mackerel caught off the west European coast was 100,000 tonnes. Last year the catch was 600,000 tonnes. When one appreciates that the estimated total stock of mackerel is only 1.8 million tonnes one can see how dangerous the situation has become. If mackerel fishing of that range is allowed to continue it will not take long to wipe out completely a tremendous asset to our fishermen. Donegal fishermen, and others with large boats, are largely dependent on mackerel catches and it is imperative that mackerel stocks be protected.

It is alarming to note that over-fishing of our waters is not entirely by EEC countries but from outside the EEC. Is the Minister aware, for instance, that many of the boats fishing inside our 200 mile zone are Danish and British and that because of the circumstances we are not enabled to even assess the size of the catches? Is there a monitoring system of the mackerel catches outside our 200 mile zone? I am afraid we are not able to assess mackerel catches even inside our limits.

Another dangerous tendency is the EEC licensing of third country boats to fish inside our coastal waters. Some months ago boats registered in Guernsey were arrested off the west of Ireland and my amazement is understandable when I say that the boats did not come from any Community country but from Spain, who are not yet an EEC member. I believe those boats are also being registered in Britain. In other words, we have fleets of boats from outside the EEC not registered with the EEC catching huge quantities of protected fish in our coastal waters. To say the least of it, this is sharp practice, and I hope the Minister will take it up within the EEC so that this type of bogus registration will be eliminated. Of course we know that the Guernsey registered boats were anxious to get at our stock of hake, a diminishing and a precious species and in respect of which EEC licences had been drastically restricted. They were able to circumvent this by registering in Guernsey.

Parts of the Estimate make good reading but some parts do not. For instance, a sum of £620,000 in grants was not taken up. In 1980 this would have been understandable because there was lack of confidence by the fishermen due to low prices for fish. I am glad to see that a stop has been put to fish imports from third countries. Deputy Power, when he was Minister, set matters in motion to ensure that unfair dumping by third countries would be limited. Prices have improved as a consequence.

Our revenue from fishery fines has increased, and I should like to think that most of that revenue came from outside the country. The owners of some Spanish boats have been fined heavily for fishing within our limits. I notice that under Sub-head I there are additional receipts of £134,000. It is good to see that we are catching poachers and collecting a reasonable amount as a consequence.

Deputy Power referred to the shortfall from the salmon levy. I am not too unhappy about that because it is my opinion that the salmon levy should not have been introduced. There are more salmon caught illegally around our coasts than legally and the levy was penalising the people with licences while thousands of people without licences were paying neither fines nor levies because of their strategies to circumvent the regulations. As I have said, the levy should not have been imposed because it was impossible to implement and to administer. The drop in receipts bears out that contention.

I should like to refer to expenditure on fishery harbours. The amount estimated was not spent although there is not any industry needing more expenditure on expansion than fisheries. When people are talking about job creation and new industries they should be giving serious consideration to fish processing. Every year hundreds of thousands of tonnes of mackerel are caught in our waters, but how much of it is processed here? I would refer particularly to Rathmullen, which has become merely a transit depot for our mackerel catches. I suggest that the Government should see to it that at least a portion of that fish will be processed here. It is known that up to September this year 37,000 tonnes of unprocessed mackerel went abroad and I would not be surprised to learn that the quantity of unprocessed mackerel exported since September has exceeded that. We read daily of Russian factory ships taking our mackerel away unprocessed. This is a matter we must look at seriously.

Vote put and agreed to.