I agree with Deputy Gilmore's last remarks. Having looked at this Bill and remembering the mistakes that we made I believe we should not rush Committee Stage. We should take the Bill line by line and amend it where necessary, because this Bill is a long way from a solution to the rod licence dispute. We made the mistake of rushing through the last Bill in the run up to Christmas and we should not make the same mistake again. By coincidence this Bill was presented to us last week and we are taking Second Stage today, a week after publication. Very few people outside this House have had an opportunity to look at the Bill yet, so let us not rush our fences on this occasion. Let us get it right, once and for all.
We are now approaching the third anniversary of the introduction of the harmful and damaging rod licence. It is extraordinary that it has taken three years to introduce a Bill to amend this famous, flawed, failed legislation — this Fisheries (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill, 1987, the rod licence Bill as it was called. That Bill was suddenly introduced in the Dáil on 16 December 1987 and passed all Stages in the Senaad on 18 December 1987. It was rushed, badly thought out legislation put through the Dáil by deception, so to speak, and the Minister for the Marine assured the House — and I quote from the Official Report of 16 December 1987, Volume 376, column 2594: "It also has the support of the Trout Anglers Federation of Ireland and the National Coarse Fishing Federation of Ireland". This, of course, turned out to be false. The Trout Anglers Federation of Ireland, the National Coarse Fishing Federation of Ireland and most trout and coarse anglers were bitterly opposed to the Bill.
I was not a Member of the Dáil when that Bill was introduced, but I was a Member of Seanad Éireann and the Minister of State, Deputy Gallagher, gave the same assurance to the Seanad. I was there on 18 December 1987 when he said, and I quote from the Official Report of the Seanad, Volume 118, column 450: "It is also supported by the Trout Anglers Federation of Ireland and the National Coarse Fishing Federation of Ireland". Again that turned out not to be correct. I spoke at length on this legislation in the Seanad on the night of 18 December 1987. I said this legislation could not work, that there was indecent haste in rushing a Bill into law which never could be worked, and which subsequently proved unworkable. I wish the Minister at that time had paid a little more heed to my contribution. I quote from the same volume, columns 453 and 454:
There should be no doubt that the introduction of licence fees will be resisted, especially in the area of Lough Corrib, the largest free fishing lake in Europe. It is promoted as such throughout the world. Galway angling and tourism interest are angry and will resist the introduction of these fees....
Angry Galway anglers will take to the streets next Saturday to protest at the Government's plans to impose licence charges for trout and coarse fishing.
The anglers are furious that Lough Corrib, the largest free fishing lake in Europe, will lose its free status under the terms of the proposed legislation.
The Government propose to licence all trout and coarse fishing in a Bill which proposes fines of up to £20,000 and two years in prison for all breaches.
The Federation of Lough Corrib Anglers are expected to strongly oppose the legislation when they meet later this week, but already a number of individual angling clubs have rejected the move out of hand.
I quote from column 459 of the same volume:
There will be, and there is, great hostility on the part of the ordinary angler to the introduction of a licence charge of up to a maximum of £40 a year for a composite licence. There is great objection to it on the part of the Federation of Corrib Anglers Clubs, on the part of tourists interests, particularly in the Corrib catchment area. As an alternative — and I have spoken briefly only to some of them — the Corrib Anglers Clubs have said they would advance a £1 for £1 contribution to match anything central Government would invest in regional fisheries boards for non-pay development.
The angling and tourist interests in Galway, Connemara and Mayo have been complaining for the past two seasons that salmon are not reaching the rivers....
That is to give the colour of the debate in the Seanad on 18 December 1987 when this Bill was hurriedly rushed through. The haste with which it was rushed through led to the situation we are now in, three years later — trying to amend that Bill.
However, despite those warnings from myself and others, the Minister and the Government of the day voted that Bill into law. This rod licence caused great damage and upset in the communities and angling areas through Ireland, none more so than my area of West Galway particularly in the Corrib region of Galway city, Moycullen, Oughterard, Cornamona, Clonbur, Cong, Headford, Claren and Annaghdown. The people of those areas resented fiercely the licence charges and the implications of Government control of our waters.
Deputy Gilmore tried to analyse why people resisted this Bill. The people of the Galway and Corrib-Mask regions resisted it because they did not want to give control of the lakes to any Government by having a licence imposed on them. For example, there are 60,000 to 70,000 acres in Lough Corrib-Lough Mask, the greatest free fishing lake in Europe, a jewel in the west, worth millions of pounds in tourism revenue if promoted properly and the introduction of this licence triggered off an extraordinary campaign of resistance and opposition in the Corrib-Mask region and other areas. The campaign was at first ignored by the Government and often misunderstood by people outside the region who mistakenly thought that this resistance to paying the licence was a resistance to paying the licence fee. It was rather about the principle of right of free fishing and the control of our lakes, and the genuine fears in the communities of the Corrib-Mask region about the Government wishing to take control of the lakes for the granting of fish farming licences or permission for fish cages which were resisted by the people.
That might seem far-fetched to people outside the area but that was a real problem in the Corrib-Mask areas. It was a problem because it coincided with the time of the development of fish farming in many sheltered bays off the coast and there was a perception which turned out to be a reality that this was a means of getting control of the lakes for the purposes of fish farming activities. That is borne out by a publication by the Western Fisheries Board entitled, Potential Sites for Salmon Smolt Production for Aquaculture Industry in the Western Region. It stated:
It is estimated that there will be increasing demand for salmon smolts by the aquaculture industry in the region over the next three years. The projected figures are: total requirement, 4 million; existing output, 0.5 million; planned output for new units extensions, 1 million; future requirements from 1987-1990, 2.5 million. According to the I.A.A. the lack of available freshwater sites is impeding the development of the industry in the region. Therefore, at this stage, it is important not only to identify the projected smolt requirements but to decide how and where this can be met. Salmon farming is of growing economic importance to the region but Irish producers have to be competitive with their counterparts in Scotland and Norway and operating costs affecting this.....
There is little published information in relation to the cost of smolt production on land based sites versus cages, but undoubtedly the capital costs associated with land based units is a prohibitive factor for many small operators.
The industry requires sites within two hours driving time of the sea cages. In practice this means that sea farms in the board's jurisdiction would most likely have to be supplied with smolts produced within the region.
I give that quotation because people outside the area seemed to think that it was a figment of the imagination of the people opposed to the rod licence that the lakes would be taken over for fish farming activities. To give an idea of the amount of fresh water required, there are 25,000 smolts in one tonne and four million smolts equals 160 tonnes. It take approximately 250 million litres of fresh water to produce one tonne of fish, that is 55 million gallons. It would require 8,800 million gallons of fresh water to produce four million smolts or 160 tonnes each year. To get this into perspective, Galway city, for example, with a population of 48,000, uses eight million gallons of water each day or 300 million gallons of water each year. That amount of water could only have been got in the Corrib region. To go further, to coincide with that, planning applications were lodged with the authority of which I myself am a member, Galway County Council. Let me give an example. Again it was a double application, first plannning reference 52454 by Éisc Iathglas Teoranta, permission for fresh water cages in Lough na Fooey which is a lake at the head of Lough Mask which feeds the Corrib. This planning application for fish cages at Lough na Fooey was refused by Galway County Council on 17 July 1986 on two grounds. I got this information as a result of a notice of motion I put down to Galway County Council in June 1988. The two grounds were that is was a public health hazard in the head waters of Lough Mask which is a major source of public water supply, and injury to visual amenity. It was also refused by the Planning Appeals Board. Despite the refusal of that application a similar application was made to the same planning authority by the same company for submerged cages in Lough na Fooey under planning reference 55416 and this was decided on by Galway County Council on 17 February 1988, and it was decided to grant temporary permission for five years. That did not go ahead subsequently, principally because of the campaign against the rod licence in Galway because the people in that area had clearly linked the imposition of the rod licence to the sudden rush of applications for fish cages on the head waters of Lough Corrib and Lough Mask one of which was granted by my own local authority. So it was not a figment of the people's imagination at all; it was a real fear which existed at the time. It was in defence of their free fishing waters that the people so resisted the legislation.
Unfortunately, this ill-conceived and deceptively introduced legislation and the subsequent successful campaign to remove it had its price in great hardships and bitter divisions in our communities. Anglers, hotel and guesthouse owners and other tourist interests suffered greatly in my own region over the three years of the life of this legislation. It is estimated that the country lost over £20 million in tourism revenue in the first two years because of this licence. The loss through divisions and misunderstanding in our communities cannot be measured in mere money terms.
The campaign to settle the rod licence dispute was an extraordinary one even going as far as an agreement between the Taoiseach and the Archbishop of Tuam in May 1988 which led to a temporary truce which was broken within a couple of weeks when fisheries officers resumed enforcement of the new Bill. The campaign to abolish the rod licence continued in a quiet and determined fashion during the years 1988 and 1989. Various meetings were arranged at this time at both low and high levels. The bishops, priests, politicians and the people worked very hard to find a solution. Numerous meetings and gatherings were held at various locations and this was a time of great stress and strain on the communities involved and on the families involved in the regions effected. Some people and some families made great sacrifices in an attempt to protect our lakes and waterways and to find a solution to the problem created by the introduction of this rod licence. Families and their spouses made great sacrifices as their partners travelled long distances to meetings and discussions night after night in their efforts to solve the problem. Some people even sacrificed their jobs; in some semi-State situations people were harrassed out of their jobs. Some business people in hotels and guesthouses lost their prime business as a result of the rod licence introduction. In fact, those people made the biggest sacrifices of all in an attempt to find a solution to the problem. Boat owners and gilly operators lost their business as, in co-operation with the efforts of anglers and others to have this legislation amended or scrapped, they refused to take any people out on the lakes for angling purposes.
This was the major tool in the campaign to make the Government realise that this problem would not go away but would have to be faced and resolved. Business people in fishing and tackle shops closed their business altogether and some were unable to recover their business, all because of bad unworkable legislation which was rushed through the House without proper consultation with the interested parties.
All of this took place during the angling and tourist seasons of 1988 and 1989 and the great mistake made by the Government in introducing this rod licence in December 1987 was now becoming clear to everybody except the Government themselves. During the election of 1989, however, the seriousness of the matter and the enormity and gravity of the mistake finally dawned on the Fianna Fáil Government when their candidates went out to meet the people on the canvass in the general and European elections. We heard a well publicised remark by the Taoiseach at the time that it was beyond his comprehension how such a small problem was causing so much bother to such a large section of the community. It was like his famous remark on the health cuts. He did not realise there was a problem in the health service until the first or second week of the 1989 general election campaign. Similarily with the rod licence, the Taoiseach did not realise there was a problem until the facts were reported back to him during the election campaign. On one occasion the Fianna Fáil candidates canvassing in Moycullen were told not to come back until the rod licence dispute had been settled, and because of the lack of response they withdrew from canvassing in the area.
After the general election the present Minister, Deputy Wilson, was appointed Minister for the Marine. He announced in March of this year that he was doing away with the rod licence. I would like to compliment the Minister who treated the matter very seriously. He sat down with all sides to the dispute on several occasions to try to find a basis for settlement. It took some time to persuade the rest of the Government that this was a problem that would have to be faced up to and that the legislation as enacted in December 1987 was unworkable. The Minister made serious efforts to find a solution to the problem.
Despite the fact that the Minister announced in March that a solution had been found, we still have the licence on our Statute Book nine months later. Indeed we had the extraordinary spectacle of the Minister for Energy, Deputy Molloy, in my constituency in front of the cameras, in a boat pretending to be fishing, without a lifejacket and with a fly rod in his hand in place of a trawling rod. That was the level of farce to which Government Ministers — although not from the Minister's party — descended.
I listened early to the contribution of the Labour spokesperson on the Marine who rightly stated that various people tried to claim credit for settling the rod licence dispute. I did not go out in any boat in March. During the previous two years when we were trying to seek a solution to this problem I had said both privately and publicly that if the Minister solved the rod licence dispute I would thank him — which I did publicly in the Dáil in March — and that I would make no political capital from it. I have kept my word and I have not spoken publicly about the rod licence since, except to ask the Taoiseach on Tuesday of last week when we could expect the publication of the Bill. He correctly informed me that it would be published the next day, for which I was very thankful.
We had to wait from March until now, over nine months, for the amending Bill to be published. If there was ever a case of long churning producing bad butter — as they say in our area — this is a prime example. I cannot understand the delay. Furthermore I am suspicious about the Bill being produced in the rush coming up to Christmas. We are taking Second Stage a week after the publication of the Bill, which is quite soon, and there is a possibility that Committee Stage will be taken next week. The danger in taking Second Stage only a week after publication is that very few people apart from ourselves will have seen the Bill. Is there a desire to have the new Bill accepted before the provisions contained therein become known to people or before people have an opportunity of reading it? However, my party and I presume all the other parties who realise the mistake that was made the last time do not object to Second Stage being taken now. Perhaps it is a little soon but Deputies can do very little harm by their speeches on Second Stage. It is on Committee Stage that the real work will have to be done.
Therefore I am not going to agree to Committee Stage being taken next week. I am not happy with everything I see in the Bill and we have to get it right this time. We cannot afford to come back here again and say that the last stage is worse than the first, but there is a danger of that happening if we attempt to rush Committee Stage or to push the Bill through before Christmas. Some of the sections in the Bill are complex and vague and therefore I would seriously ask the Minister not to insist on finalising Committee Stage before the Christmas recess. In any case there is only one week left to deal with legislation. The final week will have to be given to financial matters.
We should learn from our mistakes in the past. Very serious mistakes were made in 1987. The Bill was taken in the Dáil on 16 December when everybody was thinking about going on their Christmas holidays and in the Seanad on 18 December when practically everybody had gone on their holidays, except Deputy G. Reynolds, myself and a few other loyal soldiers. The legislation was rushed through without any consultation with the angling clubs, the tourist interests and others who might have put us on the right road. As a result a lot of hardship was suffered by individual families, communities and tourist interests. People abroad could not understand the complexities of the rod licence problem, but I assure the Minister and anybody outside who is listening to this debate that the people on the ground certainly understood them.
As I have said, we are now discussing Second Stage of the Bill a week after its publication, with a possibility of Committee Stage being taken next week. I would say to the Minister: "Hold your horses". The Government rushed through the legislation three years ago and we have paid dearly ever since. We should take our time and consult the people involved. Let us get it right this time and not, as before, work in haste and repent at leisure. We will of course be told by the Minister and others that it will have to be in place before 1 January to facilitate advertising and printing of Bord Fáilte brochures and so on, but we will not buy that this time.
I ask the Minister what delayed the publication of this Bill since agreement was reached with the interested parties in March of this year. Surely it did not take nine months to print this Bill. I further ask the Minister if this Bill is a true reflection of the agreement reached with the interested parties in March. I do not think it is and I will be surprised if it subsequently turns out to be so.
The Fisheries (Amendment) Bill, 1990, was introduced to deal with the co-operative movement but I submit, with respect, that the Minister's idea of a co-operative differs greatly from the concept of a co-operative as set up and envisaged by Sir Horace Plukett when he founded the co-operative movement in 1889. The small spark which he lit then soon became a flame which still burns brightly today. By 1894 the co-opertive movement was a national body and the IAOS — as it was called at that time — was established to look after the affairs and interests of co-operatives. The body is now in existence but it is known as the ICOS as it was changed in 1979. I speak as someone who worked all his life in co-operatives before I got a worse job in this House. What the Minister is proposing in this Bill cannot be deemed to be a co-operative in the real sense of the word. For example, the only place for the registry of co-operatives is with the Registrar of Friendly Societies, Hume Sreet, attached to the Department of Industry and Commerce. Will this Bill have provision for a new registry office? Is that where the new angling co-operatives, if they are set up, will be registered? Will there be confusion in regard to two bodies registering co-operatives? Will there be confusion about duplication of names of co-operatives which will be registered in two places? Those are just the mechanics of the difficulties in approaching it in this manner.
Existing co-operatives do not have an obligation in law to issue share certificates. They usually do but there is no obligation to do so. Share certificates will have to be issued to the angling co-operatives if this Bill becomes law. A share certificate implies share in ownership. How does the Minister propose to overcome that? If the shareholders have a share in ownership could the co-operatives in five, ten or 20 years decide to put their share certificates up for sale? Could there be a takeover as we have seen in the recent history of dairy co-operatives where large scale multinationals, who are now in trouble, forced up the price of co-operatives against farmer-owned co-operatives?
It is obvious that this Bill will take a long time to tease out and that my party will have to put down a number of amendments to it. Indeed, we will have to examine the Bill line by line on Committee Stage. It is essential, before Committee Stage, to examine this Bill from the point of view of the legal and co-operative aspects, anglers, the Minister and the Department of the Marine because we will only get one bite at the cherry. We will have to get it right now or go down in history as the people who made a botch of it a second time. If at all possible I do not intend to make a botch of it but certain guilt must be apportioned to all Members for accepting the word of the Minister when the first legislation was introduced. Those mistakes were made and I acknowledge my part in them although, as I said earlier, I tried to warn the Minister on 18 December 1987 in the Seanad about the repercussions the Bill would have. I was speaking from practical knowledge of my own area at the time. As Lady Bracknell said, to err once is forgivable but to err twice is sheer carelessness.
Section 3 says that a licence under the principal Act shall not be required for angling for trout or coarse fish. However, where does it say that we are abolishing the Fisheries (Amendment) (No. 2) Act, 1987? I should like that clearly spelt out because I fail to grasp it so far. Section 4 states that the Minister shall, by order, establish in each fisheries region one or more fisheries co-operative societies to raise and disburse for the public benefit funds for the development of trout or coarse fisheries, or both, in a specified area in the region. It is stated all through the Bill that the Minister shall decide this, that and the other. The Minister is being given too much control.
Section 4 (3) says that the Minister may, by order, revoke or amend an order made under this section. The same thing is stated in subsection (6). The Minister will be a very busy man if, as well as running his Department, he has to run every co-operative in the country set up as a result of this legislation.
Section 5 (1) states that the Minister may make rules for the regulation of societies and such rules shall constitute the rules of each society from its establishment. Subsection (2) states that the rules under this section shall, in relation to a society, provide in particular, for (a) the functions of the first trustees of the society; (b) the membership and functions of a management committee (including its functions as trustees) and the appointment, or election, and terms and conditions of office, of its members or any of them; (c) the quorum for meetings of the trustees or management committee of the society; (d) membership and termination of ordinary and corporate membership of the society and (e) ballots for the purposes of this Act. Subsection (2) (h) provides for the accounts of the society and the audit of its accounts.
Subsection (3) states that the Minister or a society, with the consent of the Minister, may revoke or amend the rules of the society. The Minister can do what he likes with the societies if they are set up. The Minister has extraordinary control. Is such control necessary? The whole idea and concept of co-operatives were that they would be a means of allowing angling clubs to co-operate in running their own affairs, such as restocking the lakes. Co-operatives were not formed to hand back to the Minister full control of angling clubs and their affairs. It would be very dangerous to do that and I hope that, by the time this debate is finished, the Minister will have the good sense to put down amendments.
I would prefer if the Minister came back with an amended Bill and we would obviously co-operate in this regard. It would be better to amend the Bill satisfactorily instead of the Opposition parties putting down amendments and the Government parties opposing them. I am not sure what the junior Government partner will do because the Minister for Energy from that party represents the same constituency as I and he must have the same gut feeling as I have about this, that we are treading on dangerous ground. As Deputy O'Sullivan said, that Minister tried to take credit for settling the whole thing. I do not know if he will be interested in taking credit for this Bill and I do not know what attitude he or his party will take if they speak or vote on the Bill.
Section 7 reads:
(1) The first ordinary members of a society shall be——
(a) the trustees appointed by the Minister under section 4 of this Act, and
(b) holders of annual share certificates for the year 1991.
(2) Any such trustee shall cease to be a member on ceasing to be a trustee.
There is too much ministerial interference there.
I do not understand the meaning behind section 8 which says:
(1) Any angling club or other body may become a corporate member of a society in accordance with the rules of the society.
Then subsections (2) and (3) indicate what the Minister might do about that.
Section 9 says:
(1) Where a society has so decided by vote or 60 per cent of its ordinary members eligible to vote and voting, a person shall not be entitled to angle for trout or coarse fish in the area of that society unless he is—
(a) the holder of a current share certificate of that or any other society established under this Act.
I can see why section 9 should be in the Bill. Societies would have to have some control in relation to obliging people to become members, but where 60 per cent of a society decide, irrespective of the views of the other members, people will become eligible to have share certificates and so on.
Section 10 outlines the fees which look all right on first reading: Subsection (1) reads:
(1) The categories of share certificates which may be granted by a society are—
(a) an annual certificate, for which the fee shall be £12.
Subsection (2) states:
(2) The Minister may from time to time by order made after consultation with the Minister for Finance, alter any fee under subsection (1) of this section either without limitation as to time or in respect of a specified year or years, and any such order shall take effect at the beginning of the year following that in which it is made.
I have to relate that to section 15 of the Bill. Under section 10 the annual certificate fee shall be £12 but if we pass section 15 we give the Minister power to change that to whatever he likes, in consultation with the Minister for Finance, to be applicable on 1 January of the following year. I was puzzled when I first read section 15 which says:
A person who contravenes section 9 or 12 (3) of this Act shall be guilty of an offence and shall, on summary conviction, be liable to a fine not exceeding the lesser of the following amounts:
(a) £1,000, or
The Minister created a doubt when he said in his speech £100, which was then corrected to £1,000.
