Thank you for allowing me to ventilate this subject for the second time on the Adjournment. We on this side of the House feel that the Adjournment debates are not being treated by some Ministers in the fashion in which they should be. I pay due regard to the Minister of State, Deputy Gilmore, who has for the second time come to hear what I have to say in this regard. It is unfair of other Ministers, particularly the Minister for Education, not to come but to send somebody who is not even from the same Department or party in her place to answer questions addressed to her.
I will give some of the background to this. I raised the issue of bottom mussel fishing cultivation in Carlingford Lough some time ago and asked that the Minister consider granting an oral hearing regarding what I forecast would be grave difficulties between conflicting interests. I was aware at the time of a number of applications for foreshore licences and the right to cultivate mussels and use the shore and the bottom of the sea in the vicinity to cultivate mussels. I told the Minister the only way this matter would be sorted out amicably and with some compromise was to have an oral hearing. To give the Minister his due he recognised that but rejected the idea on the basis that there had been an oral hearing some years ago and that it was not necessary to go to the bother of rehashing it again. My words have been prophetic and the Minister of State and his Department will acknowledge that there have been some unseemly happenings in the area regarding this issue since I raised it here in May. The Minister might acknowledge in retrospect that his Department could have gone about this issue in a better way because the anxieties and fears of local people are heightened and there is unease and some nastiness in the atmosphere in the Carlingford Lough area.
Since I raised this issue matters have moved on slightly and the fishermen were told in no uncertain terms by the Garda Síochána, who I accept were doing what they saw as their duty, that they could not use a particular area of the foreshore, an area which they and their families before them had used for years, on the basis that an individual who had previously applied for a licence had received it. I was asked by a number of the people involved what was the position and I told them to ask the Garda Síochána to produce the licence. They went back to the Garda and I understand a licence was not produced. Matters progressed, the people were again told they were breaking the law but were not shown a licence.
I decided to try to establish whether there was a licence. With that in mind I tabled two parliamentary questions on 4 July asking how many licences were extant in the Carlingford Lough area. I was told there were five holders of different types of licence but only one relating to mussels, and that related to another group which previously had a licence. The person who had allegedly received a licence was not listed as one of the licensees, although the Garda Síochána said there was a licence. It was out of sheer frustration that I tabled a parliamentary question at the time. I assured the people who contacted me that the individual in question had not got a licence and showed them the reply the Minister had given me on 4 July. On 9 August an application for an interlocutory injunction was taken out in the High Court by the individual who purported to have the licence. He made certain representations by way of affidavit and otherwise in the High Court where he said that in connection with the application for the injunction he had been granted a foreshore licence by the Department of the Marine on 16 June 1995.
I tabled this motion out of sheer frustration because on the one hand I was told by the Minister on 4 July that a licence had not issued to this person; yet on 9 August this person said that on 16 June he had been granted a licence by the Department. Both stories cannot be correct. Either the Minister's response was incorrect or what was said in the High Court was incorrect. It transpired that what was given was a letter from the Department that it had agreed in principle to grant a licence but that the conditions of the licence had yet to be decided. A licence, signed by the Minister, was not given by the Department until much later, well into August. Perhaps the Minister of State will acknowledge this. I accept I have to be careful about this, but in effect the application in the High Court for an injunction based on the supposed granting of a licence on 16 June was incorrect, as were representations made to my constituents by the Garda Síochána, in that there was no licence in existence, only a letter from the Department.
This is a very important issue for my constituents because they were dragged through the High Court and had to go to the expense of submitting affidavits etc. in order to fight this. However, leaving all that aside, I again implore the Minister of State and his Department to act in an even-handed manner. There is no doubt that this has been handled in a ham-fisted manner in that one applicant has been granted a licence while a number of other small mussel fishermen have still not received licences for areas where they feel they have succession or squatters rights to fish. In May last I made certain statements about being careful. I do not wish to be in any way alarmist but I implore the Minister of State and his Department to be even-handed in their treatment of this problem.
