Ba mhaith liom fáiltiú roimh an mBille seo. Tá tábhhacht faoi leith ag baint leis an obair atá á déanamh ag Bord Iascaigh Mhara ó cuir-eadh ar bun iad agus tá a fhios againn uilig an dul chun cinn atá déanta ar son tionscal na hiascaireachta ó bunaíodh an bord thart ar triocha bliain ó shin anois. Ba mhaith liomsa tréaslú le baill an bhoird agus leis na hiascairí féin as an dul chun cinn atá déanta acu go dtí seo. Tig linn bheith bródúil as an méid atá déanta don tionscal iascaireachtá go dtí seo.
I welcome this Bill and, as I said in Irish, I want to congratulate BIM, the Department and the Ministers we have had on the progress we have seen in the industry over a number of years. The board have done a tremendous job, and it is a little sad to see at the moment the disquiet we have in the industry. In the recent past we would have been inclined to ask if we were presiding over the death of the fishing industry. I say this because our stocks are dwindling rapidly and at the same time methods of catching fish are improving and in our own case our fleet is increasing. If we want to see the industry progress properly it is necessary to have more money provided for exploratory fishing, for research so that we can be quite certain as to what stocks of fish are available and the amount that should be taken out annually.
In my association with and experience of the industry I have never before seen the disquiet and lack of confidence that is showing up at the moment. Catches are down considerably. If you take herring, for instance, because it has been used as the bonus or plum which helps to give a fisherman a profit on his year's work, you might say that the herring industry is non-existent at the moment when we compare it with the situation we had in the past. Catches are down considerably, prices are at a very low level and the fisherman who depended on trawling for other types of fish during parts of the year and then went to catch herring now finds that he no longer has the stocks available to him and he has not the wherewithal to meet his repayments on his boat and other overheads which a fisherman has to face. The cost of diesel and of gear and equipment and the general overheads of fishermen are a terrible nightmare. The prices which fishermen obtain for their fish are a bad joke when compared with the prices of other varieties of food. I heard a report on the radio this morning on fish market prices and the types of fish most in demand were selling at between 8p and 14p per pound. What else could be bought at such low prices? The fisherman have many overheads to meet such as the cost of getting their product to the market, porterage and auctioneers' fees and they are left with very little profit.
For the first time in a number of years fishermen are very much behind in repayments on loans for the purchase of their boats and gear. I have not the exact figure but I would hazard a guess that about 50 per cent or 60 per cent only are managing their repayments whereas a few years ago that figure was almost 100 per cent.
BIM have done a very good job since taking over some aspects of the fishing industry. There is, however, too much fragmentation in the development of the industry. BIM are responsible for the development of the fleet and for providing advisory services and in recent years they have become responsible for the training school for young fishermen, but they have no responsibility for harbour development or for other aspects of the industry. The development of piers may involve the Department of Fisheries and Forestry, the Office of Public Works, local county councils and, in some instances, Údarás na Gaeltachta. This is not a satisfactory situation and hinders real progress. Facilities for fishermen at our harbours are almost non-existent. Local co-operatives have been trying to do something about this but there is a lack of working capital. Members of the co-op may be fishermen trying to pay for their boats and they do not have the necessary funds to do anything worthwhile. How many of our ports have adequate fresh water supplies, cold storage facilities, ice plants or facilities for fishermen to repair their gear? How many have slips where boats can be put up for annual painting and cleaning, something which is absolutely necessary? We lack all these facilities. Such developments cannot be isolated from marketing and processing and while our approach remains fragmented the industry cannot progress as we would wish.
It would be interesting to know the number of people who would need to be employed on the Continent by BIM in the marketing field to do the job properly. In the past BIM have been limited in the number of personnel and the amount of finance available. When one considers the money and facilities which have been made available to Bord Bainne and other State agencies to market their produce, BIM would certainly appear to be the poor relation.
We need long-term plans setting out our future aims for this industry. I am not talking only about the big trawler men but also about the inshore people, the half-decker men who have traditionally fished along our coasts. They are very important to the industry and many of our leading skippers have graduated from half-deckers to the bigger boats. By protecting inshore people we will also do a conservation job in protecting stocks. The method used for mackerel and herring inshore fishing has been the drift net and this is the perfect method of conservation in as much as only the mature fish are caught. I do not think anything worthwhile is being done for the fishing industry when the large trawlers can come into the small bays where those part-time fishermen operated so successfully and deplete our stocks.
The methods the part-time fishermen employed in lobster and cray fishing was not a hindrance to the future of the stocks. The methods now being used, such as tangle nets, are questionable. Cray fish, in particular, are taken out in great numbers and the quality and presentation of the fish afterwards is not nearly as good as when the old traditional fishing was used. The Department will have to take a serious look at the future stocks of lobsters and cray fish. The tangle nets are certainly doing great damage to cray fishing stocks. The modern methods may be fine because more fish can be made available at a particular time but when we take the interests of the industry in the long term into account we find that many of the methods now employed are questionable.
We have great potential for the development of some types of shell fish, such as oyster fishing. In Clew Bay in the last few years oyster fisheries have been discovered. Some of those could have been utilised long before now if we had a more positive approach to this type of fishing. One of the fisheries concerned in the Newport-Westport area is now controlled by a co-operative. I am glad to say that they were given control by the Department. It now means that while they have control, fishing will be organised and stocks will be protected. This will ensure that stocks will be maintained.
Oyster beds have been discovered in the northern part of County Mayo. I am afraid if some control is not introduced the stocks will not last very long. The Department and Bord Iascaigh Mhara do not seem to have trained personnel to do research and investigate what is available in relation to this type of fishing. Oyster fishing can be carried out by part-time fishermen such as local farmers. This can supplement their incomes and prove very lucrative if it is properly organised and directed. We have been very lax over the years in tackling this problem. I am not blaming the Department directly for this. I believe they have been working to the best of their ability on the budget available to them over the years and they probably did not have the necessary resources to go into this type of work.
A lot of money is allocated to industries which start here. We have only to compare the outcome with what could be done in concentrating more on the development of our natural resources in the manner I have described. I ask the Minister to have a close look at this. There are many inlets right along the coast where I believe we could develop oyster fishing to a much greater extent than we have been doing up to now. I believe around 1840 the landlords were given permission to plant oysters and those were used to the benefit of the big houses. The stocks are still there but they have not been exploited to the full and used to the extent they should be as a worthwhile branch of our fishing industry.
I believe since we joined the EEC, despite the fact that some substantial grants have been made available to us for various aspects of the development of the industry, an air of uncertainty hangs over the future of our fishing industry. We do not seem to know exactly where we are going. There have been a number of debates on the future of the industry and the possibility of having a common fisheries policy introduced — the Minister referred to this in his speech — but at the same time we do not seem to be making any real progress in relation to what the final outcome will be.
We all realise that 1982 is crucial as far as the future of the industry is concerned. When we joined the EEC we were in the unfortunate position that the question of equal access had then been decided on by the existing member states. This left us in an almost impossible position. We had the derogation clause which left things more or less as they were for ten years. That finishes at the end of 1982. I believe the time has come to be positive and take very firm decisions in relation to what will happen this year. The Taoiseach, the Minister for Fisheries and the Government must clearly indicate to Europe what we want for our fishermen. Will we have an extension of the period or will we have a situation where the Dutch, the Germans and all the other strong fishing nations can come right up to our shores? It is a frightening thought if that is what we are to have. That is why I believe we have, very quickly, to take positive and drastic steps to protect our industry. We must try to restore confidence in the industry because unless our fishermen know very soon what the position will be, they will not have the confidence necessary for the industry to progress as we should like.
At this stage we should set up a State committee co-ordinating the efforts of everybody concerned in the industry — Bord Iascaigh Mhara, the Department, the Office of Public Works, county councils and the fishing industry. These people should sit down and, as quickly as possible, try to blueprint what they see as the future of the industry. I believe we should go to Europe with positive plans showing we have a constructive approach and that we want to see the advances which were made in the development of our industry continued for the next few years.
Europe gained a great deal under the conditions laid down in the Treaty of Accession. At that stage they had nothing left; they had cleaned their own bays. It is too bad if we, at this stage, allow them to come here and finish the job they did in their own waters. We should be determined about this and not make any apology to our European partners in trying to convince them that we were treated very badly under the Treaty of Accession and that we want to protect and develop what we have. We will still have something left if we get the response from Europe to which we are entitled. The Minister will have the full support of the Fianna Fáil Party if he and the Government take whatever steps are necessary to put that case as strongly as possible to our EEC partners.
The fleets of some of the EEC Member States are dwindling. As far as they were concerned is was a question of kill — and "kill" was the operative word — because by modern fishing methods they have killed their stocks and their concentration is now in our waters. I consider the dumping of fish as immoral. There must be something wrong when a fisherman lands a catch, has the fish sprayed, coloured and thrown back into the sea. That must be demoralising for the fishermen. Traditionally fishermen are superstitious and talk about luck, but they cannot feel happy about going back to sea if they realise that when they catch the fish it will have to be sprayed and thrown back into the sea.
An EEC scheme providing milk for our children at a cheap rate has been introduced. This is very worthwhile and is something with which we all agree. The EEC bureaucrats should not find it too hard to think of a comparable scheme where this fish could be made available as food. It is ridiculous, stupid, silly — I cannot find the words to express what I want to say — to do what our fishermen are doing at present.
I want to comment on agreements made by individual member states with third countries in relation to imports of fish into the Common Market. I wanted to get information in the Library on the recent Canadian-German agreement and was told they did not have the information nor did the EEC Office, or Foreign Affairs, but that the German Embassy would have to be consulted. This evening I was told that the terms of the agreement would be published shortly and I would see them for myself. I am led to believe that imports of fish from third countries like Canada are causing havoc in our markets and as a result the prices paid to our fishermen are depressed. I would like to know where we stand on this matter. What rights has our Minister? How are these agreements arrived at? What form of protest did the Minister make to try to ensure that these landings would not cause the problems I am led to believe they are causing at the moment?
I understand the Germans are allowed to fish inside the Canadian 200-mile limit for some kind of concession by way of a certain tonnage of fish being sent from Canada to Germany. If that kind of agreement militates against member states, we are going against the principles on which the Common Market was founded. The first loyalty has to be to the member states. If one of the stronger states, like Germany — and I am subject to correction on this — can impose its will on the Community as a whole and, as a result, get certain concessions or conditions that are to its benefit but to the detriment of other member states like Ireland, Denmark and the smaller nations, we will seriously have to look at the whole position of the EEC. Last week I tried to get a copy of The Hague agreement but I was told by one of the Library staff that none was available, that the material was confidential. I was amazed to hear that. To whom is the information confidential? Surely we as Members of the Oireachtas are entitled to such information. I should like to hear from the Minister on this point when he is replying.
I referred earlier to the plight of the part-time fishermen. There are many anomalies so far as they are concerned. For many years there was the tradition of the use of small fishing craft around our coasts. In this way local people supplemented their incomes but with the help of BIM they were provided with 26-footers and with half deckers. This change eased their plight and helped them to improve their earnings considerably. What I am emphasising is not within the Minister's area but I would ask him to consider it vis-á-vis two other Ministers, the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Social Welfare. The case I am making is that fishermen are regarded by the Department of Social Welfare as self-employed while they are regarded as PAYE workers by the Department of Finance. This anomalous situation must be corrected as quickly as possible. To give an example of what I have in mind let us take the case of someone in my county who engages in part-time fishing compared with another person who goes to work with Bord na Móna or on a building site. I am talking about seasonal or temporary employment. When the person who has been working with Bord na Móna or on the building site goes to his local employment exchange having finished his employment, he gets his unemployment assistance or benefit without question. I know that I am digressing somewhat but what I am saying is related to the fishing industry.
