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Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 3 May 2017

Vol. 949 No. 1

Inland Fisheries (Amendment) Bill 2017: Second Stage (Resumed)

Question again proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

Deputy Pringle has the floor and he is sharing time with Deputy Mick Wallace.

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to the debate on the Inland Fisheries (Amendment) Bill 2017. There is no doubt that the ability to prosecute illegal fishing offences is vitally important for the State in terms of managing fisheries. However, I have some concerns with the Bill itself and how we have arrived at the position of requiring this legislation.

As the Minister of State outlined in his opening contribution, the Inland Fisheries Act of 2010 has been shown to have some errors in it which has necessitated this legislation. This is basically emergency legislation to correct problems with the primary Act. According to the Bill digest, the potential errors with the original Act were identified in 2015 but it is only now, in 2017, that this amending legislation is coming before the House.

My concerns relate specifically to the actual offences and the prosecutions that have been withdrawn. The Minister of State said that 150 cases fall into the category of being affected by the requirement for this legislation. He also said that it should be noted that cases that have already finally been disposed of by the courts are not affected. I ask the Minister to elaborate on that. My understanding, although I am not a legal expert, is that if someone is illegally before the courts and convicted, then that conviction is unsafe.

In my opinion, anybody who has been convicted under the aegis of the 2010 Act since it was passed has an unsound conviction. It is interesting to compare what is being done in this case to what has happened in recent weeks in respect of people who were wrongly brought before the courts for penalty point offences and who received convictions as a result. Gardaí have put their hands up and announced that they intend to contact all the people in question to inform them that their convictions are unsafe and that they will support the quashing of those convictions. Given that the Garda has received a great deal of bad press in recent times, it is interesting to see it being held up in this case as an example of how to do things properly. It seems to me that the Department, or Inland Fisheries Ireland, is remiss in failing to contact those who have been convicted and had fines imposed on them under this Act since 2010 to inform them that their convictions are unsafe. When the Minister of State speaks at the conclusion of Second Stage, I would like him to expand on the rationale for the Department's decision that this should not be done.

I was in court in Dungloe, County Donegal, a number of weeks ago when cases against approximately 30 anglers were withdrawn by Inland Fisheries Ireland on the basis that the 2010 Act did not give it a legal basis to have them before the courts. I assume those cases are among the 150 cases mentioned by the Minister of State. I understand that seven cases which are waiting to be heard before the Circuit Court on appeal will be withdrawn as well. If I am right in what I have said about those cases, why are people who have been prosecuted not being contacted and informed that their convictions are unsafe? This serious matter needs to be addressed as a matter or urgency. It is a criminal offence to be caught fishing illegally. It is possible that people have criminal records even though the State did not have the legal right to bring them before the courts in the first place. This matter needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency. It cannot be allowed to continue. Officials from the Department or from Inland Fisheries Ireland need to contact the people in question to make them aware of the situation. They need to put their hands up and say they got it wrong. They should come clean about the fact that the convictions of those who were wrongly before the courts are unsafe. They should facilitate such people in having their convictions quashed. That is the only way to proceed properly with this matter in accordance with natural justice.

Unfortunately, Inland Fisheries Ireland has a poor reputation among anglers and people who fish right across the country because of the way it behaves. I would like to cite the case of John Boyle, Peadar Ó Baoill and John Boyle Reilly from the Rosses angling club, who are before the High Court because of the way Inland Fisheries Ireland has behaved regarding the Gweebarra fishery in County Donegal. These men are being prosecuted, even though Inland Fisheries Ireland has no legal right to prosecute people in respect of Gweebarra fishery because it has no legal ownership of and no right to this fishery. The Department should examine this case in the interests of decency. The least it should do is halt the proceedings that are under way. It is not acceptable that the three ordinary individuals I have mentioned are being put under huge pressure and forced to defend themselves through the courts on the basis of something that Inland Fisheries Ireland has no legal right to do. In all decency, these proceedings should be stopped and brought to an end now.

Earlier in the Second Stage debate on this legislation, other Deputies identified severe problems with how Inland Fisheries Ireland goes about its business and deals with those who have to work under its aegis. That is not the way to make sure fishermen and anglers are on board with what needs to be done and are helping to conserve and preserve stocks. My view is that Inland Fisheries Ireland should be working closely with fishermen in communities and local areas to develop catchment management plans, etc., so that entire catchments can be protected and preserved. The inclusion of fishermen in this process would help stocks to regenerate and redevelop. I appreciate that this is not really relevant to the Bill before the House. I emphasise that the people who have already been convicted under the faulty 2010 Act need to be contacted. This matter needs to be addressed by Inland Fisheries Ireland as a matter of urgency.

The most serious issue facing Inland Fisheries Ireland is not whether it has the explicit power to prosecute offences under the Fisheries Acts - it is the declining fish stocks in our rivers. It is all well and good to amend the legislation to beef up powers to prosecute, but what difference will it make when there are no fish left in our rivers to protect? As Deputy Pringle has pointed out, the legislation that has been introduced by the Minister of State provides for the upholding of prosecutions that were carried out by a body that did not have the power to prosecute. It is an unjust sleight of hand, to say the least, to suggest to those who did not appeal such prosecutions that those prosecutions are grand even though they were taken with no legal basis.

Although Inland Fisheries Ireland seems to spend much of its energies trying to protect fish from fishermen, I suggest that the fish are not being protected and the stocks are not being replenished. I will give an example. The conservation limit for salmon is not being met on the River Slaney, like many rivers across the country, and has not been met for many years. While illegal fishing and poaching may well be a factor in declining fish stocks, it is no more than a tiny factor. Heavy sea lice infestation from salmon farming has resulted in additional mortality in migratory North Atlantic salmon. What is being done about that? Who is being prosecuted? Water quality and the negative effects of afforestation, drainage effluent discharge, siltation and agricultural enrichment have an impact on juvenile salmon production. What is being done about that? Who is being prosecuted? Water extraction for growing agricultural crops and for industry leads to lower water levels. This leads to fish being unable to clear weirs to travel upstream to spawn. What is being done about that? Who is being prosecuted?

All anglers on the River Slaney are aware that salmon get trapped on a daily basis at a privately owned tailrace at Clohamon outside Enniscorthy. Inland Fisheries Ireland has undertaken just two major inspections at the tailrace since 2007. The most recent inspection, which was undertaken in July 2016, resulted in Inland Fisheries Ireland removing approximately 2,000 sea trout and 200 adult salmon. The survival rate of the relocated fish was negligible. When a similar inspection was undertaken by Inland Fisheries Ireland in August 2013, some 450 sea trout and 120 salmon were removed. It is pathetic that there have been just two inspections of this very obvious and consistent problem over a ten-year period, especially when the river is not meeting salmon conservation limits. Meanwhile, the fishermen are losing out. Over a decade ago, all 75 salmon draft-net fishing licences were suspended downriver on the River Slaney. The talk at that time was that draft-net fishing might return after two or three years when the salmon stocks had been given time to recover. At the time, the idea was that by suspending the licences more salmon would be able to make it upriver to be able to spawn. Ten years on, not only have things not improved - they have worsened.

Things got even worse in January of this year when rod fishing licences were suspended, and not for the first time, because of diminishing stocks. As a result, rod fishermen, the presence of whom would be a deterrent to poachers, are not allowed to catch and release salmon. We have been told that the standing scientific committee on salmon which surveys the River Slaney on a continuous basis has continued to arrive at the conclusion that salmon stocks in the river are far below what they should be. The failure of salmon stocks to recover is continuing to result in the extension of the suspension on the net licences. This prompts a question. If the net fishermen on the River Slaney are the problem, why have salmon stocks on the river not recovered since the suspension came into place? If the stocks have not recovered after ten years of no draft-net fishing, it goes without saying that some other factor or factors could be preventing the stock from replenishing. Nobody on the River Slaney is more conscientious about conservation and maintaining the salmon and eel stock than the licensed fishermen. For some of them, their livelihoods depended on making sure there was no overfishing. Fishermen do not survive unless the stock survives. In this case, the draft-net fishermen were the first group to be penalised. It is now transpiring that they were not a serious factor in the dwindling salmon and eel numbers.

The second group to be penalised on the River Slaney were the anglers further upstream. Late last year, in a further knee-jerk reaction to dwindling salmon and eel numbers, the Minister banned anglers from catching salmon on the River Slaney in 2017. Over 100 objections were submitted to the Minister at the time. He might tell us if he responded to any of them. If the Minister had read any of the letters, he would have seen that the objectors had valid concerns, not least in respect of the 200 salmon and 2,000 sea trout that were pulled out of the Clohamon tailrace in August 2016.

To put that number in perspective, over the whole of 2006, the last year there was net fishing on the Slaney, net fishermen caught 365 salmon while rod fishermen caught 343. Before banning anglers, did the Minister give any consideration to the fact that the presence of anglers, even operating on a catch-and-release basis, would deter poachers and assist the staff of Inland Fisheries Ireland, IFI, in protecting the salmon stocks? Given there is an independent standing scientific committee on salmon monitoring the River Slaney and other rivers for some time now, why are salmon stocks not recovering? Are we simply counting fish and penalising the easy targets? If a few rod fishermen are not allowed catch and release fish, why is a tailrace allowed to continue operating when it is trapping hundreds of healthy fish and preventing them from reaching spawning grounds?

Why are the agricultural and industry sectors not being investigated and sanctioned, given that it is not the fishermen who are the problem on the River Slaney? Since the late 1980s, bodies such as Teagasc have been telling the Government that nitrogen and phosphorus wastes from farming sources were leading to the slow but steady decline in the quality of rivers and lakes. Leakages of farmyard wastes, spreading slurry at the wrong rates or times and the overland flow of water containing phosphorus from soils already overloaded with it were causing pollution and a process of eutrophication that was leading to the disappearance of entire species of fish. For decades now, we have been watching our waters suffer because of contamination and nutrient run-off, primarily from agriculture. With recent extreme rainfall events, along with the certainty of more such events resulting from climate change, this problem is only going to get worse before it gets better.

Add to this the Government’s gung-ho attitude of increasing the national herd and we have a deteriorating chance or hope of improving the situation. The 2016 EPA, Environmental Protection Agency, report laid out quite plainly that the ongoing and planned expansion in the agricultural sector under Food Harvest 2020 and its successor, Food Wise 2025, may threaten improvements in water quality if not adequately managed. The dairy sector has been set a target of increasing milk production by 50% by 2020. Under the expansion plans, increased application of nitrogen and phosphorus to agricultural land is likely to happen in areas of the country where the concentrations of these nutrients in water are already elevated. The challenge is to target management measures to prevent any increases in nitrate and phosphorus concentrations in waters.

In 2012, some 53% of suspected cases of pollution in rivers were attributed to agriculture. Of the breaches found in 2014, some 52% were due to the poor management of livestock manures and other organic fertilisers, 16% were due to manure storage structural defects while 18% of breaches were simply due to poor management of clean waters. As the EPA pointed out, based on these figures, there is clearly room for improvement in the management of manures and organic fertilisers on a significant proportion of farms. Many of these issues can be solved by reasonably straightforward changes in the management of farmyards.

This is emergency legislation, the purpose of which is to secure prosecutions against those who breach the regulations designed to protect fish stocks in inland fisheries. Up to 64% of the land in this country is used for agricultural purposes with 80% of that land devoted to grass for cattle grazing. This is a big industry. Perhaps that is part of the problem. How many farms have ever faced prosecution for the nitrogen and phosphorous pollution destroying our rivers, waterways, lakes and fish stocks? How many surprise inspections are carried out into bad practices on farms?

The State certainly has a responsibility for the fact that sewage is still going directly into rivers and lakes. In 2017, this is nothing short of disgraceful. I had serious arguments with Phil Hogan, when he was environment Minister, about the incredible number of faulty septic tanks but nothing being done about them. At the current inspection rate, it will take over 200 years to inspect all individual septic tanks. When I debated this with Phil Hogan, I asked him what percentage of tanks in Wexford did he think were not functioning as well as they should be. He said, as the land in Wexford is good, there would only be a small percentage of faulty septic tanks, somewhere between 5% and 8%. I told him I had built a fair few of them in my time and that at least half the septic tanks in Wexford did not function properly. It was not because people did not follow the rules at the time. They did, but the rules were not right.

We have good soil for certain aspects of farming but we do not have good soil to take the bacteria out of wastewater coming from sewage before it reaches the water table. We have serious problems with contamination of the water table. Many of the outfalls from these individual septic tanks go to rivers which causes massive problems. There was no serious effort on the part of the Government to deal with this issue. We made a token gesture of inspecting septic tanks to placate the EU. We did not, however, make a genuine effort to deal with the fact that half of septic tanks do not function properly. It is a serious problem and should be addressed. It is all very well that the EU has left us alone, it is happy we are doing a little bit about it and all is grand. The truth be told, however, we are poisoning ourselves and certainly our fish stocks.

On behalf of the Labour Party, I welcome the opportunity to contribute to the passing of this important legislation. Notwithstanding its brevity, the Inland Fisheries (Amendment) Bill 2017 carries with it significant importance. Its main aim is to deal with lacunae in the Inland Fisheries Act 2010, which, due to what was clearly an error or oversight in transposition, did not confer explicit powers on Inland Fisheries Ireland, IFI, to prosecute offences committed under the fisheries Act.

The Inland Fisheries Acts 1959 to 2010 are the basis for the management and protection of Ireland's inland fisheries resource and sea angling sector. The Inland Fisheries Act 2010 established IFI by effectively replacing the Central Fisheries Board, along with the seven regional fisheries boards. It subsumed existing functions of those bodies and dedicated IFI to the protection, management and conservation of the inland fisheries resource. The Act also restated several provisions arising from the Fisheries (Consolidation) Act 1959, the Fisheries Act 1980, the Fisheries (Amendment) Act 1999 and the Fisheries (Amendment) Act 2000 which dealt with administrative and legal matters pertaining to inland fisheries. It also updated the penalties applicable for offences under the then existing inland fisheries legislation so that the monetary values were brought up to date and modernised. More generally, it updated and amended the Inland Fisheries Acts 1959 to 2007 to take account of changes to the management of the angling sector. The IFI, henceforth, operated under the aegis of the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources.

Inland Fisheries Ireland has several general functions such as supporting, promoting, facilitating and advising the Minister on the conservation, protection, management, marketing, development and improvement of inland fisheries, including sea angling. It also seeks to develop and advise the Minister on policy and national strategies relating to inland fisheries, including sea angling, and to ensure the implementation of the delivery of policy strategies developed and agreed by the Minister.

Species of fish protected by IFI comprise all freshwater species, including migratory species such as salmon, sea trout, eels, as well as lamprey. IFI is also charged with the protection of certain molluscs, including oysters, and enforcing bass fisheries legislation. It has a wide remit and is responsible for the day-to-day management of inland fisheries resources, including setting conservation limits and issuing licences, as well as acting on reports of pollution and poaching. It also covers certain activities at sea, including commercial fishing for salmon, sea trout and sea angling.

It has the power to enforce environmental legislation, including the water pollution Acts. Some requirements under the Water Framework Directive, Directive 2000/60/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 October 2000, transposed into Irish law by the European Communities (Water Policy) Regulations, 2003 (SI 722 of 2003) also fall under IFI’s remit.

Similarly with the habitats directive, Inland Fisheries Ireland controls the management and surveillance of stocks of fish species listed in Council Directive 92/43/EEC as transposed into Irish law by the European Communities (Birds and Natural Habitats) Regulations 2001. It has a very wide legislative remit, with prosecution and enforcement in terms of breaches forming a significant part of its supervisory role.

I concur with some of the points made by my colleagues. In the midlands and especially Westmeath, which is unambiguously known throughout the country and Europe as the lake county capital of Ireland, we clearly understand the socio-economic importance of recreational angling and the tourism and recreational activity that can be generated. We understand its importance to the local economy. We are certainly disappointed with the way we have been treated by the various fishery boards, including what was the Central Fisheries Board and Inland Fisheries Ireland, as well as the Government as a whole. That has never been recognised. We are aware that to ensure the National Strategy for Angling Development 2015 to 2020 is delivered, approximately €25 million in additional investment is required. The payback would be significant and more resources are definitely required for the midlands. We see ourselves as the poor relation and we will not be able to achieve our undoubted potential in the absence of dedicated resources and making positive discrimination in favour of the midlands. As my colleagues have said, what is the good in having all those lakes with tremendous potential if the same old claptrap emanates from the same old people.

There have been too many appointments to boards of the same old people. I remember one person, the late Ms Pat Doolin, who was a reservoir of knowledge and information. She would have been a fine representative of industry on the relevant boards, but she passed away at a very young age. She would never have had the chance to be appointed to a board. She had more in the back of her brain than all the fisheries crowd together. In fairness to her, she lodged a fairly strong campaign against licensing when it was introduced. She said she would not mind a licence if she knew it was to be used for the purposes of promotion. She exemplifies the types of people I speak of.

There is a requirement to assess the impact of the current recruitment moratorium. A number of people are employed by Inland Fisheries Ireland, especially people doing important outdoor work. There has been a significant decline in the numbers employed and this must be addressed through a relaxation in the moratorium. We find this to be the case right across the midlands. One notes that Inland Fisheries Ireland spent over 188,000 person-hours and carried out 31,180 patrols in 2016 in protecting inland fisheries resources. It needs additional manpower to enable it to continue its work across a wide number of areas.

Prosecution is considered one of the main deterrents to illegal fishing activities in the long term. Under Irish law, on-the-spot fines may be issued for a range of fisheries offences, such as fishing during the closed season or taking smaller fish than allowed under by-laws. It appears in approximately July 2015, the first scent of trouble in the Inland Fisheries Ireland's prosecutorial capacity arose when an unsuccessful challenge to the jurisdiction of the Inland Fisheries Ireland in prosecuting summary offences of the Inland Fisheries Act was raised as a preliminary issue in a District Court case. As I understand it, the judge held that all functions of the old central and regional fisheries boards, including the power to prosecute, were transferred to Inland Fisheries Ireland under the 2010 Act. This clearly served as a warning, and clarification and advice was sought from the Attorney General's office. The advice received indicated that Inland Fisheries Ireland did not have explicit powers to prosecute under the Fisheries Act 2010. The reliance on that Act to prosecute a significant number of cases, including high-profile and large-scale pollution and sea fish kill events in rivers or lakes, has been clearly questioned. As a barrister, one might have the view that the current legislation unamended would certainly fall foul of a High Court challenge. It has been very lucky to escape thus far.

It was also clear that the Attorney General took the view that an explicit power to prosecute must be included in Part 4 of the 2010 Act, and that is why we are here this evening. This Bill will remove any uncertainty or ambiguity pertaining to powers of prosecution by providing in section 4 an explicit statutory power for the Inland Fisheries Ireland to prosecute offences under the Inland Fisheries Act. This is the import of what was conveyed to us in the March 2017 press release from Inland Fisheries Ireland that the Minister of State is now following up. It appears a number of summary cases before the courts for specific fisheries offences cannot be proceeded with because of this lacuna. It appears cases also disposed of by the courts are not affected. Like my colleagues, I feel that where there is a lacuna in the law as passed, those prosecuted should not be the victims of same and they should benefit. If there is a lacuna in the law, it is up to us as legislators to ensure the law is correct. If there is a lacuna, the benefit should fall to people in court. If people did not appeal or pursue the matter, they should not be left in a worse position than those who did pursue the matter.

There is much potential for significant investment in our fishing and angling industry. We in the midlands, and especially Westmeath, feel we have not been afforded the investment our county deserves. As I stated, we see ourselves as a poor relation. We are designated as a lake county for a very valid reason. It is well deserved. The Minister of State has lakes in his own area but we have Lough Owel, Lough Ennell, Lough Derravaragh, Lough Lene, Lough Iron, White Lake, Gaulmoylestown Lake and the River Inny, which I live beside and which flows into the River Shannon. We also have the lakes around the River Shannon, and I know some are in the Minister of State's own place. We are associated with that. There is also the River Brosna, the River Gaine and the Royal Canal.

I live on the banks of the canal, which travels as a seductive artery of attraction through a number of counties, including Westmeath. I am thankful we played a very positive role as part of the Royal Canal amenity group back in the 1980s. At that stage, madcap and lunatic ideas were being propagated at the highest level. People were then talking about the M4, on which the Leas-Cheann Comhairle now travels, and they spoke about building it along the bed of the canal. Ordinary volunteers with the Royal Canal amenity group worked against that. I can name them in my own area. They included Mr. Jimmy Evans, who is currently living in Watson Mills, and Mr. Tony Murtagh. A few of us started that, including Mr. Eddie Slane. They were great people on the Royal Canal amenity group and they saved the canal. We now have the greatest amenity in Europe. We pay much lip service and talk about it but if it were properly used, it would bring life back to areas like Killucan, Thomastown, back to Mullingar, and to Coolnahay, where Paddy and Clare Crinnigan have a massive attraction. It could go to Ballinacarrig, Abbeyshrule, Ballymahon and to the Shannon. We have a wonderful facility and it is what we need.

The Wild Atlantic Way has been correctly focused upon and the necessary resources have been allocated, including significant promotional and advertising campaigns that have borne fruit, with thousands of visitors and tourists staying in the area and contributing to economic activity and new business employment along the way. The same focus or desire has not been placed on our lakes regions and the Central Fisheries Board, now Inland Fisheries Ireland, has let down the region in this respect. We should be clear about that. It is great at producing reports, scientific work and signing documents but this is where it is at. We have hosted national and international fishing competitions at senior and junior levels and we have tremendous facilities and accommodation, including hotels and bed and breakfast accommodation, along with many other worthwhile attractions.

We had a fish farm at Lough Owel guaranteeing a supply of fish for over 50 years. All we heard was a sneaky under-the-table announcement from the board of Inland Fisheries Ireland just over a year ago that it intended to close the fish farm from January 2018. There was uproar and an eruption from the people who use it and saw its value. They rightly protested and organised public meetings. I am thankful that everybody came to their senses in the interim because of the public uproar at such a proposal. I thank the Minister of State as he travelled in his own time, late in the evening, to visit us. He played a very central role in bringing sense and direction back. He is no fool and he knows his industry. He knows what agriculture and aquaculture mean to those areas.

We need approximately €3 million in investment and it is well worthwhile upgrading and refurbishing that fish farm to ensure it has the capacity to serve its purpose. We need a cohesive plan that will exploit in a beneficial way the enormous potential of the fishing industry as a recreational and tourism product in the midlands, especially Westmeath. I unashamedly advocate for my home county as we have been left behind. We do not have much industry coming in and everything seems to bypass us.

There is an excellent road network with the N4, which many people use, the intersecting N52 and the M6. They are wonderful roads. There is also a rail line with a decent service and there are tremendous education facilities, but we are bypassed. We have this natural resource and we must use it to best effect for the area. There are many rural areas across Westmeath. It is mainly a rural agricultural county aside from a few big towns such as Mullingar, Athlone, Kinnegad, Moate and Castlepollard. That is the reason we need this to come to fruition.

The fishing clubs in Westmeath are ready, willing and able to play their part. I appeal to the Minister to use their knowledge, capabilities and expertise. He should not depend on consultants who are far removed from reality or practical knowledge and who draw up strategic plans and prepare theoretical reports without an ounce of practicality in them. I always pride myself on what I did in this House for the carers in the early 2000s. I was chairperson of the Committee on Social Affairs. I sat with colleagues from all parties and we invited 100 people representing carers, representative groups and organisations to make submissions. We hand wrote the report. There was no use of consultants or wasting money. The report contained 15 recommendations. The Leas-Cheann Comhairle's colleague, the late Seamus Brennan, was the Minister at the time. Fair play to him, he and his colleagues - Fianna Fáil was in Government - implemented seven of the recommendations. It just shows what can be done. We broke the taboo that a person could not get two social welfare payments. Most Members will remember that this was the sacred, cardinal rule. We recommended that a person get 50% of the carer's allowance if they had another payment. That report is available and I can leave the Dáil with the badge of honour-----

-----that we broke that taboo. We wrote the report ourselves. I remember rewriting parts of it during a sunny day. We did that because the carers are very important. I am very proud of the work they are doing throughout the country. They are saving us €4 billion or €5 billion. I realise I am straying from the topic but this shows what can be done by people working together at political level, with no one-upmanship. We were politicians with practical knowledge of the matter. That is the reason I have an awful aversion to consultants and particularly these boards, because the first thing they do is seek a consultant. Next, a cheque for €40,000 or €50,000 is sent out which could be profitably used somewhere else down the line.

My colleagues have referred to the plight of eel fishermen. They have been left in limbo by the effective suspension of their licences. These are people who have made a living from eel fishing. There are approximately 150 of them. They have paid their taxes and complied with their legal obligations. They are not fly-by-night but people who have worked hard over many years. The suspension of their licences is due to a decrease in eel stocks. The life cycle of eels is quite slow, although the Leas-Cheann Comhairle would know a great deal more about fishing than me. I am no expert, but I have some clue about inland fisheries given where I live. In the absence of those licences and given that restoration does not appear to be likely or there certainly is no degree of acceleration in that regard, people have effectively been deprived of their livelihoods and lost their income as well as their way of life. Fishing is not just a job to generate income, but also a way of life for people. It is beyond time that a proper compensation package was put in place to assist these people, who are now in genuine and significant difficulty.

If this had happened in any other sector, there would be an outcry and protests. I represent the agricultural sector and I am the Labour Party's spokesperson for that sector as well as on fishing and rural affairs. If that had happened in the agricultural sector, there would have been a litany of complaints and a number of protests. Let us be fair to these people. The Minister should devise a simple compensation scheme. We have a definite number and it would be fair. I have no doubt that the Minister of State would be eager to secure this but I am well aware that all of these things land in the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. I also know how people resist things. I was given a great lesson about that during the discussion on the Bankruptcy (Amendment) Bill. To show how difficult these things are, one of the excuses used was that if we reduced the period to one year, Ireland would become a bankruptcy tourism destination. People would flow in from the North and England to this country, even though the period was already one year in those places. That is the type of ingenuity I encountered and I have not forgotten it, because I considered it preposterous and unsustainable.

The Labour Party will support this Bill. It is an important Bill that fills a lacuna in this area. The Minister of State has acted properly and speedily to bring the legislation forward and we will facilitate the passing of the Bill by the House. I wish the Minister of State well. I acknowledge the way he reacted and worked beyond the call of duty to help secure the future of the fish farm in Lough Owel. It has not gone unnoticed and should be acknowledged in the House.

I am delighted to speak on the Bill. Its purpose is to confer an explicit power on Inland Fisheries Ireland, IFI, to bring and prosecute summary proceedings for inland fishery offences. IFI is the State agency responsible for the protection, conservation, development and promotion of Ireland's inland fisheries and sea angling resources. It was established on 1 July 2010 - I was a member of the Committee on Communications, Energy and Natural Resources at the time - following the amalgamation of the Central Fisheries Board and the seven regional fisheries boards into a single agency.

I do not believe it has acquitted itself well or that proper thought and processes were put into it. Our system has failed us. I compliment Deputy Penrose on and salute him for his service in the House, not only from a legal point of view but also as a Deputy. I congratulate him on what he did for carers. He also recognised the role of the Leas-Cheann Comhairle, who was a Minister at the time. It was a common-sense approach. Sadly, however, common sense has gone out the window in everything in this country.

I have a question for the Minister of State. I ask him to note it and to get his secretary or somebody in the Department to refer back to me on it. People have been prosecuted in this country and now we are rushing a Bill through, after the fact, to ensure the prosecutions stand. That is an outrage. Our law was not up to it and they should not have been prosecuted. As Deputy Penrose said, and he has a legal brain and is a qualified man, if they were prosecuted and did not appeal it, they are being told "tough" by the State. That is a travesty. That is not the justice for which the people of 1916 fought. It is disgraceful.

I know some of these people in my county. When I found out about this from the Minister, Deputy Naughten, I told one fellow that he should not have been summonsed. He told me he had pleaded guilty as he was sick of going to court. He was hauled before the court on three days because he was taking timber out of a river that could have washed away the N24 at Kilshane and Bansha in Tipperary when the flood occurred a couple of months later. It is what every farmer has always done - mind the rivers, take out the surplus timber and clean the bridges. Now, they cannot look at them because there are fellows going around in shiny shoes with briefcases who are flashing badges. They are like terrorists. They are terrorising farmers and ordinary people. It is not good enough. They must be reined in.

I sat on the committee that appointed the IFI board. I and two former colleagues, former Deputies Noel Coonan and Peter Kelly, were privileged to be appointed as three lay members to interview the applicants. Deputy Eamon Ryan, who was Minister at the time, brought in an initiative whereby three board members would be appointed by the communities. I volunteered for it and got the job. We arrived at the Public Appointments Service office in O'Connell Street to pick the people. We were given 100 CVs to examine. We were greeted by an official who brought us in, gave us tea and said, "Gentlemen, you would not be able to look at them as you have so much to do, so I picked the first 20." I was appointed the chairperson of the interview board. I said, "Have you now, madam? Thank you." I turned the CVs upside down and I started reading from the other side. She was horrified. We called for a break and she went down to have tea. There were dozens of officials there, such as retired county managers and retired senior civil servants. It was the cosy club. They protect everything. She was going around whispering in people's ears, "This fellow should not be here at all. He is upsetting the apple cart. He will not take the names I gave him." When I looked at the names they were all retired chief superintendents, retired chief fire officers and retired senior officials in the county council. Deputy Penrose mentioned the name of a lady earlier. Her name was added.

She was taboo. She was a community person who had more in the back of her brain than all of the officials had together. She could not be on the board. She would be dangerous because she knew something about the industry and its troubles. Retired officials in receipt of pensions and big pay-outs were going to tell us what to do. They were hand-picked. It was decided to start at the bottom and pick three good people, who served their time. They were from the industry and involved in fishing clubs and preservation work, rather than officials who were paid to travel everywhere and who would be promoted having secured prosecutions. We have lost our way and it is a downright disgrace.

People have been prosecuted under the board which succeeded the previous board and followed the amalgamation of the seven regional fisheries boards. The Minister of State is standing over that. He is happy to pass the Bill. People were falsely convicted. That is not democracy; it is like something that would happen in a junta in Africa. Ordinary people were doing good. I do not cover up for anybody.

Deputy Wallace has left the Chamber, but I challenge utterly what he said. He gave a bad name to the farmers of Ireland. They and the farming organisations have made huge efforts in the negotiations and training that took place. There were bad practices in the past, but they have been wiped out. Deputy Wallace referred to the pollution caused by farmers and the damage to rivers and fish. He claimed that there were not enough inspections and wanted to know how many unannounced inspections had taken place. There are plenty of unannounced inspections from boys and girls who have nothing else to do but clock up mileage on their cars travelling from Athlone to Tipperary and Tipperary to Galway. It is farcical. The lunatics are in charge of the asylum and ordinary people are being prosecuted.

Fishing clubs in many places in Tipperary do tremendous work stocking the rivers, minding their areas, looking after flora and fauna and providing proper fishing facilities. I could not call some people anything better than terrorists because they are not there to assist but to prosecute. It is bad enough being prosecuted when they have the law on their side, but we have found out they do not have the law on their side. We have to introduce a Bill. I am disappointed with the Minister of State, Deputy Kyne, and the Minister, Deputy Naughten, for proposing this.

As Deputy Penrose said, those who were fined should be paid back and compensated for their many trips to the courts. They should be compensated for their good names being besmirched on local media and having been identified as being prosecuted. They should be supported and given prizes for protecting bridges and other infrastructure that would have been swept away by trees and everything else that came down the rivers.

This is outrageous. I note the Minister of State's officials are whispering to each other. I hope they are taking note of what I am saying. I am not anti-official, but they know precious little about the industry. That has been proved by what Deputy Penrose, who has been in the House a lot longer than I have, said. He outlined what happened to the Royal Canal, whereby there was a proposal to build a motorway on it. Power has gone to the heads of officials. They are punch drunk with power across a plethora of Government agencies. Farmers and ordinary people who are building are affected. No banker was prosecuted. There is a cosy elite and the minions, who worked, paid taxes, educated themselves and provided community facilities are prosecuted.

Others cannot drain so much as a teacup or eggcup of water from the rivers that are flooding their houses because so many agencies have to be consulted. They are told they cannot do this or that. The Minister, Deputy Ross, gave us €1 million to pitch a bridge in Ardfinnan. The project has being going on for two years and now crayfish has been found, following three or four consultants' reports. The consultants should be sacked and forced to repay the money they were paid. Why were the crayfish not found two years ago? We have money for the project but there is a punitive one-way system on an old bridge, which is a lovely protected structure.

The first consultant's report, on which €60,000 was spent, was published two years after the bridge had been damaged. A second consultant's report was sent to the Department in order to secure the money, but it cannot be spent because crayfish were found under the river. Archaeologists and other specialists from abroad now have to examine the area. It is a case of, "You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" when it comes to hiring consultants. The system is sick and stinks to high heaven. It is corrupt in the extreme. The people in Ardfinnan will be told to go to hell and that the money is being taken back because the bridge cannot be fixed due to crayfish. I am as interested in fish species as anybody else, but as I said at a public meeting there are a lot of Bray families in Ardfinnan. I never knew there were crays there.

We are being told there are snails in rivers and we cannot touch anything. There are too many people with degrees and doctorates who could not use a shovel, bucket, pump or siphon a glass of water out of a glass. It is disgusting and I hope the Minister of State is listening. I thought he was a country man who represented the islands. This is disgraceful and an abuse of power. People are being prosecuted and fined. The EPA is fining people on the spot.

A farmer in my village was cleaning the banks of a river. He never went near the water, but instead pulled off scrub bushes which, as Deputy Healy-Rae will tell the House, one would be prosecuted under the single farm payment for not addressing. The EPA representative flashed a badge and told the farmer if he was brought to court the fine would be €5,000 or €10,000 but if he paid on the spot the fine would be €1,500. It is like Travellers outside of fairs. It is a barter system, whereby people are told to pay up instead of going to court. It is extortion and intimidation. It is disgusting and wrong, no matter what laws we pass.

These people have to be reined in. I talk to the Minister of State, Deputy Canney, every day. It is difficult to try to drain a river or clean a stream or bridge. The streams and ponds used to be clean. I remember horses and carts and men with shovels cleaning waterways, and then when diggers came along they were used. Now excavators are used. We have all the equipment in the world, but we cannot touch rivers and streams.

My town, Clonmel, spent €15 million on a successful drainage scheme for 15 houses that have not yet been saved. That is futile if we do not clean the river because all of the dirt, moss and dust is washed into gullies and into sewerage pipes and rivers. The rivers are rising every year and we have spent money on building large walls which spoil the views and many other amenities. It is all a folly because ecologists and others tell us what we cannot do. Farmers are ready, willing and able to act. They can take off topsoil, drain rivers to three or four feet and then put back the topsoil. The land will be fine and the rivers will be deepened. The rivers in Clonmel and elsewhere will have to be deepened.

When all of the whizzkids are sacked or retire on large pensions they will be working for others in private consultancies. They set up systems before they leave and create consultancy agencies with people they gave money and contracts to. They line them up to give them consultancy work. The system is rotten, stinks and is disgraceful. The rivers cannot be touched, but they must be cleaned.

The Government does not mind that people's houses are being flooded and will relocate some of the people affected, but will not clean the rivers. The rivers were cleaned years ago and the fish were not poisoned. Many good people worked in the fisheries industry. They mean well, but there is now red tape, bureaucracy and sheer contempt for ordinary people in officialdom. Officials are flashing badges at people, as is the case with An Garda Síochána in many counties because of all of the bad press. People cannot walk in certain areas. It is all law and no fairness.

I am not in favour of breaking the law, but these laws are ridiculous. I told the Minister of State about the corrupt nature of the public appointments board, how I challenged it and what happened. I have anecdotal evidence and the Minister of State can contact the former Deputies I mentioned. It was a charade.

Ordinary people who decided they would avail of the opportunity to be on the board submitted their CVs, which were excellent. Their teeth and nails were worn from kneeling down and working on tidy towns projects, cleaning rivers and other things, but nobody from the fishing industry was appointed. The list was turned upside down and those appointed were selected by a senior official. A cosy cartel has brought this country to ruin. We cannot afford it. There is a furore at the moment that maybe there is a threat to their pensions. Why should there not be a threat to their pensions if they do not earn their pensions? What pensions do ordinary people have?

Suing farmers and bringing them to court is disgraceful and despicable. It is blackguarding and flouting the law, and those involved in it should be held to account. Their names should be printed in newspapers. It is time the Government sat up and listened. I am surprised by the comments of Deputy Wallace because he is from Wexford. He blamed the farmers. I blame Big Phil, the former Minister. He was the monster who decided septic tanks were polluting the country.

The towns and villages, including in my county, are polluting the rivers because raw sewage is flowing into waterways. There is no attenuation and no soak pits; it flows straight into rivers and streams. That is the fault of the Government, county councils and the EPA. The water on the bridge in Newcastle was tested and I asked those involved several times why they did not test the water that was 400 yards away. I told them that was where the outflows from the pipes work, but I was told the water had to be tested at a different place.

Gardaí might have helicopters with them. The county council and public plants are polluting the river. The same happens in Dublin. Millions of euro were spent on a facility in Clonmel. A family made money from fishing eels in the River Suir south of Clonmel to keep the Clonmel Arms going. The water is now crystal clean and there is a new treatment plant which cost €7 million or €8 million. There are no eels or fish in the river. The treatment plants are doing more damage than the pollutants did. That needs to be checked.

They tell us one can drink the water, but I did not. There is no animal or fish life in it. The geniuses with the degrees who would admonish and look down their noses at the ordinary fishing clubs and those who know nature on the ground must be taken out of the place and put out on the ground. Let them take off their shiny shoes and put on wellies, take a shovel and a bucket and look at what is going on. The rivers are rising every day of the week and people are being flooded, yet we have to have a report. When it takes ten agencies to try to dredge a river to save people's homes, we have lost the plot.

The lunatics are continuing to run the asylum and the Minister of State is allowing that. He is a country man, fear na tíre. It is a pity that when people like him are appointed to office, they cannot keep back the chaff and assert that they are the bosses and elected by the people. Officials see Ministers as a threat only for the time being because they are the permanent Government with their hands on the handlebars of powers such that one would need a jackhammer or a chisel to get them off. That system has ruined us. It is ruining us in all agencies and all aspects of community life and community spirit. With the rural driving issues now, it is about blaming the lads from the country going home from the pub after a couple of pints for killing everyone. It is a nonsense and they are an easy target. The people of rural Ireland are sick and tired of it. People are playing dirty with them. Rural home owners spend the money on their wells and septic tanks, but the Government is giving those who paid their water bills back all their money. It is a cop-out. I have never seen such a cowardly and inept Government.

I will not be supporting the Bill because many people are being prosecuted in the wrong. We need to know how many people were prosecuted in the wrong. They must have the fines returned and their characters restored before I will vote for anything like this. This Bill is intended to protect fish stocks, which is a goal I support. I support fishing, the tourism product it creates and the people it brings in. However, that is not its effect. The Bill will ensure that more landowners and farmers are prevented from taking anything out of the rivers they and their forefathers protected and kept clear. All of our rivers are blocked. It is each and every one of them. The Flesk and all other rivers in mid-Kerry are blocked and choked and no farmer can touch them because of what is termed "cost compliance". If Inland Fisheries Ireland officials come upon a farmer, he or she will lose payments which is enough to deter anyone from going near a river and clearing it out. They are all blocked. We are told the Shannon has not been cleaned out since the 19th century when it was done by the British. We are now talking about building walls, banks and flood defences at a cost of millions while, as Deputy Mattie McGrath says, consultants are paid to carry out report after report. If there was some way to jack up the houses and roads, that is what we would be told to do. That cannot be done, however. Nevertheless, the Government is insisting that one road in Kerry must be raised but it will realise when it tries it that houses further along will be flooded if it is done. That is in the Flesk valley and the Government will not get away with it.

I am very sad also that Deputy Mick Wallace blamed farmers here tonight. I know only too well how much money farmers have spent over the years to build slatted tanks and to comply with the nitrates regulations and directives. It was very unfair of him. I would much prefer if he were here when I mention his name but I do not see him. It was very wrong of him to blame farmers for reduced fish stocks in our rivers because the fact is that it is the factory ships in the bays that are cleaning the whole thing out. The fish cannot come up. They cannot get near the Flesk, Roughty or Sheen rivers in Kerry because they are stopped in the bay by factory ships that can clean everything out in one hour. Why does the Government not do something about that and prosecute those fellows given that it is where the problem is? We have to tell the truth about this. Fish will not survive where rivers are closed in with bushes because they need sunlight, but that is not being recognised or dealt with at all. Most of our rivers are covered in with the bushes from both sides meeting in the middle. The fish cannot see any daylight, which is another reason they are not as plentiful as they were in times gone by.

I do not accept either the remarks Deputy Wallace made about septic tanks because I know how strict local authorities are in granting planning permissions to young couples trying to put roofs over their heads. They must go through many hoops to build those septic tanks. There may be a few here and there but they are not the cause of the problem as he is outlining it. As Deputy Mattie McGrath said, previous Governments denied local authorities the funding to bring their treatment plants up to scratch. It was supposed to happen in 2008 and 2009 and we were going to be fined €500,000 in each case by Europe. Local authority members voted to increase levies because of it but it has not happened. The sewage is still flowing into the rivers and seas from towns and villages. Why does the Government not deal with that? That is how it would see the thing coming right again after a few years but it will not do it. It continues to perch on the vulnerable, namely, farmers and the young couples installing septic tanks at their own cost and to a certain standard. It is very unfair to blame them and many others like them.

I will not vote for the Bill until the Government makes some attempt to return money to the people it fined and to the farmers it frightened from their own rivers, denying them to right to clear rivers and causing the whole place to be flooded. The country is flooded because our rivers are full to the brim. Some consultants suggest raising the banks and building walls and defences, which is a cod. The Government is not fooling me and it will not fool the people. The rivers need to be cleaned out but the Government is ensuring it will fine anyone who goes near them. Doing good is what it is at.

I pay tribute to the finest bunch of patriots and decent, honourable men and women I have ever come across, namely, the men and women who work for Inland Fisheries Ireland. According to its last annual report, they carried out approximately 561 land-based patrols, more than 1,000 water-based patrols and 27,000 foot and vehicle patrols to protect one of the country's most important resources. I want to set out how valuable that resource is. In 2012, some 400,000 people participated in recreational fishing right around the country. It is a huge number. Their direct expenditure is worth more than €500 million and its impact on local economies, whether in Clonmel, Drogheda or west Kerry, means the creation of 11,000 jobs, particularly in rural, remote, beautiful and scenic areas that are far from towns and villages. I cannot accept what other Members have said here tonight. It has been an appalling insult to the finest people I have come across. They are dedicated public servants who are available day and night. They do not walk around with shiny shoes, briefcases and suits, like Deputies. Deputies are talking about people who dress in an olive green uniform like any other fishermen. While they have an identity badge, they do not throw their weight around.

What they do is protect the fisheries. The proof is in the facts, which are very clear. Listening to Deputy Mattie McGrath, one would think we are back in the days of the landlord class, with the ordinary Irish locals not being able to fish and not being supported in this activity. The number of prosecutions in the most recently published annual report was 73 in the entire year. The average number of convictions is 76, so clearly when Inland Fisheries Ireland goes to court, it has very good evidence. However, it rarely does go there. With regard to fixed charges, which are like penalty points, 289 fines were issued which did not involve attendance at court, which is a little over four a week. It is wrong to paint these men and women as people who are rampant and abusing power and privilege. They do quite the opposite. They protect one of the greatest resources we have.

I was privileged in my political life to be Minister of State with responsibility for Inland Fisheries Ireland and it was the greatest pleasure I had. Day after day and it provided information and brought me to meet people. Its staff interact absolutely with communities throughout the country. In the whole concept, from Ciaran Byrne down to the last recruit, and the lowest in the pecking order that other people speak about, I never met nicer or better people. Something I found very helpful and useful was the way they interacted with the huge number of inland fishermen and fisherwomen throughout the country. They are not enemies, they are friends of the fishermen and the fishermen are friends of them. When one goes to fishing competitions one sees they are friends. They eat together and drink together. It is not a hostile activity, rather it is protecting a scarce resource.

I look at the River Boyne. Some of us remember stories from national school about Fionn Mac Cumhaill and the bradán feasa. The fact is that the salmon and the trout, particularly the salmon, were sacred fish, as Denis Maher, who is listening, knows. Many is the time we listened to that story about how important and sacred the salmon was to early pre-Christian Irish people. At the very dawn of history, they thought the salmon came from God because the only time they ever saw salmon was when they came upriver. They never saw them going down because they were much smaller and had a different form. Protecting salmon is hugely important resource.

I did a Google search for County Louth and I came across an account from 1764 about how important and productive the salmon fishery of the Boyne was. We can read about the 1830s, when there were so many salmon coming up the river Boyne in August that they were shoulder to shoulder the whole way across the river. This is a contemporary description from the time. We will not find them there today or tomorrow, and we probably will not find them in 20 years' time, because the salmon is a species threatened with extinction. Inland Fisheries Ireland is managing that resource in a very productive and constructive way. One can speak about its staff having PhDs. Many of them do have PhDs and they are real scientists. They are scientists with a conviction and passion which is acknowledged not just in Ireland, but throughout the world. Our scientists in this field stand head and shoulders above anybody else I have ever met.

Here is a message for the Minister of State. Perhaps Inland Fisheries Ireland needs to interact more with Members of the Oireachtas. Perhaps the Minister of State needs to invite Members in each county to meet Inland Fisheries Ireland staff and local fishermen's organisations. In the model I had in Louth, we met the Boyne fishermen and the Glyde and Dee fishermen. Inland Fisheries Ireland walked around and spoke to public representatives and fishermen to speak about the issues and they worked together to improve the resource. This is what is going on. It is an entirely different world from that which other people state exists, and this is hugely important.

One of the gaps is in recreational fishing, where we need more people to get involved. Inland fisheries and sea fisheries are hugely important and I will speak about inland fisheries. More than 400,000 people are involved in inland fisheries. Of those, 120,000 do not reside in the Twenty-six Counties. They come from Northern Ireland, the United Kingdom and everywhere. Why should they not do so when we have a wonderful resource which is being protected. However, it is under challenge. The conferences throughout the country attended by ordinary fishermen are a sharing of knowledge. There is a commitment that Inland Fisheries Ireland want people to fish in the rivers and catch and release. If there is a surfeit of salmon, they can be kept. The fact is if the figures are not there they cannot be opened and people cannot catch and keep. Inland Fisheries Ireland will do everything it can to have a catch and release system.

Never were the reports I read as Minister of State interfered with. Never would I have dared challenge the science or authenticity of an argument based on credible research and facts that are put in front of a Minister of State. I read every letter of objection and the Department would insist on it. They were put in a pile in front of me, often on a Thursday afternoon when people might want to get out of town. The Department and Inland Fisheries Ireland very much encourage meeting objectors. We had meetings in my office with people who objected. They would travel from whatever part of the country they came from and they were always welcome. The debate and the arguments would take place and, in 99.9% of cases, the scientific facts were as they were stated. If Inland Fisheries Ireland could have done something, it would. This is what it does. It is there to help and not to hinder. This is why I feel so strongly about it.

Another issue that concerned me when I was Minister of the State - perhaps the current Minister of State can provide more facts on this later - was involving more people in fishing. The lack of young people involved in fishing was a big issue, as was encouraging more young people to fish and encouraging competitions for young anglers. I remember going along the Boyne Canal when I was Minister of State when there was a special competition for young children from primary schools. The fishermen were there with their children. They had a competition and it was a lovely day out. It was very relaxing. Some of the young people were delighted to be able to catch a fish and release it. There were photographs and chat, and the memory of all of this is very important for families. We need to get more young people and women involved because there is a deficit of anglers.

An advantage I found was the offer of Inland Fisheries Ireland to go to local national schools and interact with the children in the class and speak to them about the resource, the life-cycle of fish such as salmon and anything the children wanted, because these guys at ground level know more than most people. They are extremely knowledgeable and committed people. Once or twice we went on field trips and they would help the children identify the micro-organisms or the fish they had caught in little streams. This is where it is at. It is not just about conservation, education and the future, it is about a greater appreciation of nature. It is about the building block of life of appreciating things greater than any individual, and about the infinite time the world has been in existence, probably 3 billion or 4 billion years. I think the Ceann Comhairle feels I have been speaking for half a billion years already.

The Deputy is doing well.

I have eight minutes of my time left. The point is an appreciation of nature, the cycle of life and genetics.

Young people find out that all of the fish in the River Boyne came from the River Boyne. The salmon do not go to any other river. Whether it is the River Moy, River Lee or wherever it is, the fish are based on the river that they come from and spawn in. The magnificent story and history of the salmon is remarkable. I appreciate that people raised the question of the eels. The information that was given, and perhaps the Minister of State can reply to this, is that the eel is a threatened species. In fact, it could well be extinct in our lifetime so we must protect and conserve it. That is really the most important message of all.

The other issue I want to raise is the question on the nuts and bolts of County Louth. One of the problems we have at the moment is that, whereas previously the county council owned or protected the water courses, they have now transferred to Irish Water. That is interior and should not be a problem. I have been trying for a month to get somebody from Irish Water to meet with some fishermen in Castlebellingham so that they could arrange to park safely in a place which is adjacent to a very small sewage treatment plant, off a lane that they want to fish from. I found it almost impossible, although yesterday I got a promise after about 20 phone calls that something would happen. I praise the fishermen, and particularly Mr. Jim Curley and the people involved in the Dee and Glyde Fishing Development Association, for the tremendous potential that they see in improving the facilities.

I also acknowledge the work that Inland Fisheries Ireland, IFI, has done. I know in that annual report, it refers, in summary, to how it replaced something like 62 stiles, footbridges and platforms. It spent €219,900 in that year on 32 separate angling facility projects. I know that IFI provides sponsorship every year. I do not have the figures, but when I was Minister of State, it was probably €70,000 or €80,000 in grants to local organisations that were running international fishing competitions. It is a huge bonus for our society, for our tourism and for the future.

The objective of this legislation is to make sure that if a prosecution is brought against somebody who breaks the law, that person should pay a penalty. Prosecutions are rare, which is the key to all these figures. There were 78 prosecutions in that particular year, which is very little compared to all the other activity. If somebody is trying to destroy a unique and special fishing resource, that person should pay the penalty, and should not and must not be protected. The process by which one arrives in that court is what the fixed penalty notice is about. A person does not go to court on the first day he or she is caught doing something wrong. A person gets a warning, then a fixed penalty notice, and those add up to whatever the figure is, and then that person goes to court. When somebody is in the court, there is a series of events beforehand which show that he or she had a warning, got a fine and was given chances along the way. At the end of the day, anybody who would harm or destroy, in a determined, absolutely ruthless way, must face the penalties of the law and those should be severe.

When one goes to the fishing competitions or to the show that is on every January outside Dublin Airport - I do not know if the Ceann Comhairle has been there - one sees hundreds of people there. I do not know the figures that go through every Christmas, but in the days I was there, there must have been 4,000 to 5,000 at the event over the weekend. All the families there are an amazing sight. The biggest revelation to most people who do not know anything about fishing, and I knew very little about it before I went into the job, is that a huge number of people are involved - some 400,000, which is an unbelievable number. It beats every other recreational activity in the country.

I ask the Minister of State to interact with all of us in the Oireachtas to ensure through IFI - obviously IFI is the organisation to do it - that in each county, Deputies and Senators and other public representatives are invited to have a small event, to see the competition, or to sponsor something for children particularly, or for women. It will transform our recreation and amenities, and it will improve our rural facilities. It will lead to the conservation and survival of species. As I said earlier, at least one may disappear in our lifetime. Salmon is under very serious and significant threat.

I thank those in the Chamber for putting up with my comments tonight. I am committed to this issue and I thank everybody in IFI, and in the fisheries section of the Department who helped me to do the job that I tried to do. It was the happiest time I spent in that Department. I spent some unhappy times there as well, but that was a very happy time. I will always remember it and always honour and respect the people I met there, and I acknowledge absolutely their total commitment to their work. It is not just a job today; it is a job for their whole lives. One has to meet them to know how good they are.

I thank the Deputy for an inspirational insight.

I welcome the chance to speak about angling and Inland Fisheries Ireland. I agree with Deputy O'Dowd that it does some really good work. Dr. Ciaran Byrne and his team are really committed to the job. It did a very good gig at the Minister of State's instigation last October, in Buswells, where it invited every Member of the House over to brief us on its work. Some of us did not go, but those of us who did go and who know IFI and work with it know that it is very committed. It gets things wrong and I am not going to beatify it by any means, but its heart is in the right place, and it faces a very difficult challenge.

I come from Ballina, the salmon capital of Ireland, as designated by Fáilte Ireland, Tourism Ireland and IFI. I do not have to go the 1700s because I remember growing up as a child, the amount of salmon that were in the River Moy in the 1980s. I remember the then fisheries company netting salmon in the middle of the town on a nightly basis. There would be dozens of good, big salmon in that net. It was a tourist attraction. It was pretty barbaric back in the day but it was very natural and the river was incredibly healthy. Even five years ago, I remember a night in town, walking home where I could see the river glistening with salmon that were in it. After a heavy fall of rain, there was about a week of really good catches.

Those days are now few and far between. We criminalised sea communities back in 2006 by banning drift-netting, thinking that it was the big solution. It was not, and yet these communities remain criminalised. They were given paltry compensation and not given any kind of a future as fishermen. We seem unable to grasp all of the various issues around dealing with compensation. As many speakers have referred to, this is an industry worth €836 million. Some 11,000 people are employed in it, and we only have three people in the Chamber. We all have to make up for that because the future of the industry is under threat. If one could imagine any other industry with that level of commitment to our economy and that level of employment, if it was facing an insecure future, there would be task forces and urgent debates, and the Ceann Comhairle would be killed for Topical Issues on it. Somehow, we do not grasp the challenge facing inland fisheries and inland angling in particular, and we must.

IFI is a Twenty-six County organisation. I do not know how that got under the radar of the Good Friday Agreement. Salmon do not worry about the Border. Nobody worries about the Border at the moment. It should be an all-island organisation to do the necessary research. We have to do more research on a European basis, and on an island basis, and with our neighbours in England, Scotland and Wales about the Atlantic and the Irish Sea, and where the salmon are going there. They are not coming into the seas either.

We can look at the issues with rivers and curtail planning and agriculture, but the reality is that they are no longer at sea. I commend IFI and its vigilance in managing the application from the other fisheries organisation concerning the salmon farm off the Aran Islands. It is extraordinary that a State company involved in fisheries would try to develop a salmon farm in a wild Atlantic area. The Wild Atlantic Way is not designed for salmon farms, particularly with the weather conditions there which could damage our existing salmon stock.

Deputy O'Dowd raised some very good issues. For his information, there are some fantastic initiatives under way to get younger people involved. There is a relatively new initiative at home, from the Moy catchment association, targeting young boys and girls to get them into the habit of angling. Growing up, and even as an adult, I have always admired the patience of an angler. I do not have it and I will never have it. They are able to stand up to their armpits in water and be teased by a fish, and yet stay there to catch it. I regularly see it happen at home. Nine times out of ten the fish will not be caught. It is an art and a sport, and it would be a shame if we were the last generation to see that sport, to enjoy that sport, and to see the economic benefit of that sport. Anglers travel all over the world.

The Ridge Pool is a mecca for anglers who travel from all over the world, who book their spot on the pool years in advance sometimes, just to get that two or three hours of fishing. They may leave it without a catch, and even if they get a catch they probably have to release it back into the river again. They go there for that thrill. No one can put a price on that. We in Ballina cannot envisage a future without having our very healthy river going through the town.

It is ridiculous that we cannot sell Moy salmon, even for a few weeks a year. It is inconceivable that one would go to Belgium and not be able to buy Belgian chocolate, or go to France and not be able to get French cheese. Salmon is one of our national dishes and we cannot sell Moy salmon. The salmon on sale in town is not what it could be. We could sell it for a few weeks a year, and include a levy which would go back into managing and protecting the river so that we continue to have that supply. We are not talking about cowboys, but rather people in restaurants and local angling associations who respect the river and respect the need for a healthy river. It is something I would ask the Minister to consider.

I have made the point about an all-Ireland angling association. Another issue that I want to highlight and pay tribute to is the Casting for Recovery agency, a group of female anglers, all of whom are breast cancer survivors and who have taken up angling as part of their recovery. Patience is part of the rebuilding of their health and IFI is fantastic in supporting them. It also does wonderful work in the summer to get children angling. I mentioned the Moy catchment association, which is a new initiative. IFI, and previously the North Western Regional Fisheries Board, hosted camps over the summer. We need to get it going into schools, partnering up with the green flag initiative, especially around water management, and making fish stocks and fish management a much more integrated part of that rather than just water management and water usage in the home. We need our children's generation to understand that a vibrant system of fish and healthy rivers are part of our ecosystem. If our fish start dying, what is next? If children understand that, they will give us the lecture.

When the showmanship is taken away, Deputy Mattie McGrath raised some issues that have not been properly dealt with or communicated. How is it that rivers are no longer cleaned? It is an Office of Public Works, OPW, issue. IFI is being blamed in the wrong here. When dealing with flood situations, IFI is practical and it will try to engage. The rivers are not being cleaned the way they were, and there seems to be a myriad of agencies blocking the basic maintenance of the river. We have a situation this evening where An Bord Pleanála has blocked an Irish Water scheme from proceedings, which will affect some 20,000 households in south Sligo, because of the presence of snails on the shores of Lough Talt. Surely that could have been managed and handled before it went to An Bord Pleanála and incurred the level of expense it has.

We have to look also at why farmers are not being allowed to open up drains and why Coillte is not being allowed to cut trees to open up rivers and the passage of rivers to ensure those rivers are not being blocked and fish are able to travel. We must take this seriously. IFI needs to re-engage with communities, with farming organisations as to their policies, and with tourism organisations. Equally, IFI itself needs to be taken seriously as an organisation. We marketed the Wild Atlantic Way, and the money that has been spent on that shows that relatively little investment can produce a major return. A relatively small investment in IFI could produce a very significant return considering its ability to promote Ireland as an angling destination. It could invest in facilities along rivers to make them more angler friendly, including facilities for disabled anglers, children and women who wish to fish. There is so much potential for IFI. A relatively small investment could bring that €836 million up even higher and increase those 11,000 jobs to 15,000. If IFI gets the budget and a sense of freedom to manage that budget, we could see phenomenal results.

The most important thing is that we need an honest discussion about what is going on with our fish stocks at sea and within the rivers. The focus is always within the rivers, but unless we have a discussion on a cross-state basis about the sea, we will not get the full answer. We also need an all-island angling organisation. We have Waterways Ireland and Tourism Ireland, but IFI is still a Twenty-six County organisation. The Minister has an understanding of the issues and of the area, and also of the issues that face IFI. I hope he takes that understanding and engages with IFI and pursues it to continue the level of engagement we had here last October. IFI should be available in the same way that Irish Water was when it started up, with meetings a couple of times a year to deal with our queries with the agency, be they around planning, prosecutions, flood management, flood maintenance or the guidance IFI can offer us on our work. This should be addressed regularly. The Minister will find he is pushing an open door. Perhaps it is something that could be done through the Business Committee to ensure it happens. Our rivers are a vital resource. We have a responsibility to protect them and to ensure that when we hand those rivers on, they are still teeming with the kind of fish we were used to as children.

A huge number of anglers have come to Ireland through the years. The sport has been worth something in the region of €86 million to this country, but unfortunately we have lost many of those anglers. We will hear many people blame the farmers for it, but the reality is that raw sewage is going into many rivers throughout the country and that is depleting fish stocks. There are major problems in some areas. It is sickening. I have seen it over the past week or two in Lough Talt in Sligo. Water has been taken out by Sligo County Council for forty years. A submission has been made which means that the water may have to stop coming out of it. That is not good and it does not bring people along.

The Bill talks about increasing fines. Working with people is how problems are solved. This State seems to think that if we continue to fine people more, they will stop doing this, that and the other. That is not how it is done. We should work with people, because at the end of the day it does not matter how many officers are working in a particular place. If communities are not working with us, we will never succeed in any walk of life. That is very important.

One year ago, we saw dramatic flooding in the west.

I and other Deputies saw the frustration people were going through in our areas and when the water had drifted away, many councils tried to do remedial works so that it would not happen again. The rigmarole and paperwork one has to go through to get these jobs done cost time and money and the attitude of officials has to change. It was sickening to see a machine stopped for two weeks recently. One can give out about a council but they were trying to solve problems and I knew the man who was trying to get the work done.

Down through the years, we cleaned rivers and drains and the fish came back but we cannot touch anything now. Near Lanesborough, one side of the river could be done but bushes had to be left up on the other side and a bit of common sense is needed, rather than relying on people who went to college and got a title as na leabhar so that they could go and tell local stakeholders how to manage their lands. These people have done it for years and looked after it well and one could learn more from them.

The farming community is blamed for everything but are the keepers of our countryside so it is very frustrating. So-called environmentalists tell us how to do things from a distance, as in the song by Nanci Griffith, but they might not know the ground while the locals do. If we make a mistake on our lands it costs us in our pocket but if an official makes a mistake it is the taxpayers who pay for it. It is very important that we work with communities and we should not always be quick to say people cannot do this, that or the other. Work has to be done to take preventative actions and there are trees lying across the Shannon and the Suck. I have worked around the country and met some great people in fisheries who had common sense. If they are near a river, they put a bale of straw down, put in place a filtering system and do the paperwork later, without stopping the machine. In certain counties, however, there are new kids on the block who think that, with a flashy badge, they have the power to do what they want and they use them to stop works, thus creating friction in communities. A good working relationship is needed with a bit of cop on from officials. They should work with people and cut out much of the paperwork, the reams of paperwork comprising method statements, details of how to do this, that or the other, and the reasons that people cannot sink this or that. They made rivers years ago when there were no rivers in the country and the fish came back.

There are also problems in some lakes in keeping the stocking rate up, such as in Ballinlough. We need to make sure we give people in small towns in rural isolated areas the opportunity to fish for recreational purposes or to attract tourists. The Minister of State is from the west and knows how dependent some areas are on a few people coming to visit. There has to be a balance and I do not say we allow people to do everything willy-nilly, but we tend to go in with a heavy hand. We flash the badge and quote this or that regulation to frighten people but if one pulls a dog's tail too often, it will bite back and that is what will happen around the country. Many people were very discommoded by the flooding and put up with a lot of torture and hassle. There were dead fish which were being picked by the swans but the farmer got the blame again. We need to get away from reflex reactions and blaming the people who keep the land because if they are not on board, we will go nowhere. I ask officials to work with people rather than adopting a bullish attitude in saying how things should be done.

We need to look at the loss of fish and the many people who have been left high and dry since the eel fishing ban came in. I have talked to small operators in different counties and there was to be a Government review and report on the issue but it has gone dead in the water and, once again, the ordinary guy has been blamed for the depletion of stocks. It would be a fair eel which would come up the River Shannon at the point where the electricity is generated at ArdnaCrusha. We need to look after these people because the eel saga has dragged on for a long time.

We should make a concerted effort, especially in the lake district and along the River Shannon, to bring stocks back and with them the tourists, because if the economy is going better there will be more money to spend on something else and less social welfare to pay out. There is no good doing anything if we do not tackle the major problem. I do not blame Irish Water because it has been going on for years and years in Connemara, in my own county, in Mayo and right around the country. The EPA does lovely reports on how this and that are wrong and there will then be a reasoned opinion from our lovely buddies in Europe and a warning that they will fine us if we do not do this, that or the other, and I accept that one needs money for much of this stuff.

I know of a lake into which raw sewage is going and Irish Water wants to solve the problem. We can treat 99% of the water but an outflow licence will not be given. Instead, people are told the sewage has to be piped for 7 km. The person who came up with that has no concept of what it costs or the consequences, because we now face the major problem of letting water out onto groundwater. Raw sewage is still going into the same lake today but the company that can treat it, up to 99%, will not be listened to. We need to home in on this type of problem because doing so, and showing a bit of cop on, will save money and be good for the environment. No one can guarantee to solve 100% of anything but if we can get 99%, the EPA should be very happy as compared with having 0%. There needs to be joined-up thinking involving the Department and the likes of the EPA. When someone puts a good proposal together they should be allowed to work with it. In Sligo, 10,000 people are relying on a water pipe being put in but because it is an SAC, about which the Minister of State will know a lot from Connemara, they will not be given an extraction licence. It is very easy to give out about a council or An Bord Pleanála but the EIAs and appropriate screenings are done. One would not want to go through the imperative reasons of overriding public interest, IROPI, process because it takes four years.

The Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment has advised councils not to go down that road because it is a never-ending journey. We need someone to point out to the authorities in Europe that we are doing the best we can and we need to get this sorted. At the end of the day human health is more important than anything, irrespective of the environmental issues.

I know the Minister of State is a fairly sensible person. Trying to punish people with heavier fines and trying to frighten the daylights out of ordinary people around the countryside with flashing badges, etc., is not helpful. Those people should work with communities. If the farmer wants to take out the bush on the other side of the river to make it better, it will not damage the fish. There is no point in saying that, because the bush will not be in the water. If they want to clean a river, they should be able to do so without any of the codswallop that goes on and filling in reams of paperwork. At the end of the day, a farmer is a farmer; he is not trained to be completing reams of paperwork.

Mistakes have been made. I was down there with Deputy Calleary one day looking at the flooding. Some years ago, some genius decided to fill with concrete some of the crevices that were heading over to the lake. It ended up that it caused some of the flooding in his town. We need to think. Some of these things are there for reasons. One would learn more talking to the oldest person in a village than spending a year in Trinity College. They know the lie of their land. There is no point in me talking about it. If I go down, as I did with Deputy Calleary one day, I can look but at the end of the day someone in that area knows every nook and cranny, just as the Ceann Comhairle would in Kildare. We need to listen to people rather than claiming to know more than them because of what is on a piece of paper. These are the mistakes that have caused problems. Unfortunately, no one pays the price for that. Ordinary farmers will pay the price because if it affects their land, it will cost them to put it right again.

I acknowledge the Minister of State is doing his best in his job and I am not criticising him. However, I have a major problem with the way some of these people go about their business. I do not accept the way they try to frighten people. In one part of Roscommon last year, there was míle murder about whether a machine was stopped. Consider a person, whose house had nearly been flooded and who could not leave it for a week or two, being told by a whippersnapper flashing a badge that he or she could not move the water. No matter how cool that person might be, he or she would get a bit blunt and excited about it.

Culverts need to be put in. We have had endless reports. A person coming from a particular area will know everything about it. They know they can do a job one way and can do right. They do not have to fill in heaps of paperwork. They do not need a consultant with 40 letters after his name charging an arm and a leg telling them how to do it when at the end of the day it could be the greatest disaster ever. The Minister of State should try to work with people in the different areas around the country.

All Deputies agree that we need to try to increase the fish stocks. We need a more common-sense approach to working with people. It would be better for the environment if we were to do that. It would be better for Inland Fisheries Ireland and a less troublesome life for the farmers and the people who live in rural areas.

I thank the Deputies who have made contributions this evening and before the Easter recess on this important legislation and on issues relating to fisheries. All speakers today and the previous day commented on the importance and value of the fishing and angling sector to the economy. Prior to the recess, Deputies Dooley, Niamh Smyth, Eugene Murphy, Lawless and Stanley raised the issue of the value of inland fisheries, and the importance of development to encourage economic activity and tourism, especially in rural locations.

Deputy Smyth referred to the study commissioned by Inland Fisheries Ireland, IFI, to assess the participation rates in angling and its economic value. I am pleased that IFI had the foresight to commission the study, Socio-Economic Study of Recreational Angling in Ireland. It is the most comprehensive study of the angling sector ever undertaken in Ireland and was carried out by Tourism Development International, TDI, an internationally-renowned specialist consultant. As speakers today mentioned, the study indicates that angling contributes €836 million to the national economy and supports 11,000 jobs, mainly in rural and peripheral communities. Almost uniquely to any economic sector, the vast majority of the spend on angling remains within the local community. The publication of the study established the important economic contribution of angling to the Irish economy and places it firmly at the top of economic and social benefit in rural and coastal communities.

On foot of the study's conclusions and the clear identification of the development potential of the sector, IFI set about establishing the national strategy for angling development. This strategy is the first comprehensive national framework for the development of our angling resource. It aims to increase the economic contribution of angling to €932 million per year and increase employment by more than 1,800 jobs. Inland Fisheries Ireland is already investigating the full array of potential funding sources. I am happy to confirm our commitment to development and to report that my Department provided €500,000 for funding support for the national strategy for angling development in 2016. IFI reviewed project applications based on this funding. I announced approval for the first €500,000 of investment for 50 community-led projects nationwide in December last. I have also secured an additional €1.5 million for national strategy investment for this year and further tranches of project funding will be announced this year. In addition, IFI has secured funding of €536,000 from the Department of Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs under the Action Plan for Rural Development which, critically, will also support the national strategy.

The strategy identifies three high-level strategic objectives: making angling accessible and attractive through information, infrastructure and support, something Deputies O'Dowd and Calleary mentioned; tourism development through promotion of our angling resource; and recognition of angling as a key leisure and recreation pursuit. The strategy aims to develop our angling resource sustainably through balancing the economic, environmental, social and cultural aspects of any development in line with IFI's responsibilities for the protection, management, conservation and development of Ireland's inland fisheries and sea-angling resources.

The strategy is intended to deliver a wide-ranging set of investments, innovations and promotions over the coming years to deliver considerable benefits in terms of employment, tourism, and health and well-being, particularly in rural areas. Effective and sustainable implementation of the national strategy, delivered together with local and national stakeholders, will ensure stability of existing jobs and businesses reliant on angling and the creation of new jobs as the economic impact of angling grows. This will ensure that Ireland's fish stocks and angling infrastructure are protected and enhanced for both their economic value and their recreational benefit to the communities and visitors they serve across Ireland.

A number of Deputies, including Deputies Stanley, Penrose, O'Dowd and Fitzmaurice, raised the issue of eels. Ireland's eel management plan under EU Council Regulation No. 1100/2007, which included a closure of commercial fishing, was approved by the European Commission in 2009. Ireland's eel management plan and its conservation measures were reviewed in 2012 and again in 2015 in accordance with the EU regulation. Both reviews involved an examination of the latest scientific data and the conservation measures, the results of which were the subject of public consultation processes. Based on management advice from Inland Fisheries Ireland and having considered all aspects of the 2015 review, the existing conservation measures remain in place up to mid-2018 at which time a further review is required.

IFI has been given funding for a new collaborative research initiative involving IFI scientists and a number of former eel fishermen to further develop national knowledge of the species and its medium to longer-term potential for recovery. This scientific initiative was commenced in 2016 and is expected to continue for three years to increase data and knowledge ahead of further review of eel management measures in 2018.

The latest advice from the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea, ICES, for 2016 published October 2015 is that:

...the status of eel remains critical and that all anthropogenic mortality (e.g. recreational and commercial fishing, hydropower, pumping stations, and pollution) affecting production and escapement of silver eels should be reduced to - or kept as close to - zero as possible. There is no change in the status of the stock as being critically endangered.

While I fully recognise the difficulty facing eel fishermen, there is no property right attaching to public eel licences and the issue of compensation does not arise.

However, consideration is being given to the possibility of a hardship scheme within the 2018 Estimates process. I would caution, however, that such consideration, as Deputies will be aware, will be against the background of competing requirements from all Departments as part of the Estimates process. That request is presently with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform.

As Minister of State with responsibility for the inland fisheries sector, I wish to make sure that Inland Fisheries Ireland is fully enabled to enforce the inland fisheries Acts, thereby ensuring the conservation and protection of Ireland’s inland fisheries and sea-angling resources. As I have already outlined, all prosecutions brought by Inland Fisheries Ireland under the fisheries Acts for which proceedings have been initiated cannot proceed. I know a number of Deputies have commented on this. Deputies Pringle, McGrath and Fitzmaurice all raised this issue. In February of this year, the advice was received by the Department from the Office of the Attorney General in the course of a review of the Inland Fisheries Act 2010. The Department advised Inland Fisheries Ireland of the relevant position. Effectively, the advice was that it was not considered sufficient to amend the Inland Fisheries Act 2010 to confirm the power to prosecute as this power had not been explicitly transferred to Inland Fisheries Ireland under the 2010 Act. An explicit power to prosecute should instead be included in Part 4 of the 2010 Act as a matter of priority. It should be noted that anyone who commits an offence is still liable to be prosecuted under the Act and that amending legislation is being pursued as a matter of urgency. That is what we are here for today.

Most of Inland Fisheries Ireland's roughly 150 pending prosecutions cannot proceed. That is regrettable. Inland Fisheries Ireland prosecutions that are currently in the courts system will have to be withdrawn on a case-by-case basis and have been over the past number of weeks. However, there will be no implications for persons already convicted who have not appealed their convictions within the statutory appeal period. When I first learned of this, I had two initial concerns. I was concerned that it could be a free for all and people could go out poaching in the morning. Thankfully, that is not the case. I also expressed the view that Deputy Pringle and others expressed on cases in which prosecutions have already taken place. I repeat the advice from the Office of the Attorney General that there will be no implications for persons already convicted under the 2010 Act who have not appealed their convictions within the statutory appeal period. That is the advice coming from the Office of the Attorney General. I appreciate that Deputy Pringle might not agree with it. I do not have a legal background, but that is the advice from the Office of the Attorney General.

With regard to the issue of the Gweebarra case raised by Deputies Pringle and Ferris, I note the assertions they have made. I am advised that the legal matter referred to is for Inland Fisheries Ireland. The matter is before the courts, so it would not be appropriate for me to comment. However, the State's records would not concur with Deputy Pringle's assertions that the State has no title to the fishery. On that basis, the State is defending its title.

Deputy Calleary raised a number of issues. Thankfully, the Moy is still the finest salmon river in Europe, if not the world. That has not changed. Unfortunately, it has been reduced-----

We will say the world so. A salmon caught on rod and line is considered to be valued at around €3,000 to the local community. With regard to the Inland Fisheries Ireland being a Twenty-six Counties body and not being part of the Good Friday Agreement, the Loughs Agency is a North-South body. Inland Fisheries Ireland and the Department co-operate with the Loughs Agency and the Department of agriculture and rural development in Northern Ireland. They jointly promote angling on the whole island and share science and research on the island and its fisheries.

Since 2001, selling rod-caught salmon is prohibited. I appreciate the point Deputy Calleary made, but the purpose of the legislation is to ensure there is no incentive to commercialise what is a recreational activity and put additional pressure on our fisheries.

In terms of the reduction of fish numbers referred to by Deputy Calleary, the Deputy is local to that area and would have seen the fish levels in the 1980s. The reduction is of grave concern to the whole country in terms of what is happening to the salmon stocks. The drift-net ban that was introduced was introduced in good faith on the basis that it was having a huge impact on our fish stocks. That is not to say that because fish stocks have not recovered, it was not the correct decision to enact the drift-net ban. Without the drift-net ban in 2006, perhaps the fish numbers would be even lower than they are now. The decision was made and a hardship scheme was implemented.

In terms of what is causing the reductions, there are multiple possible reasons for it. Global warming could have an impact. The supertrawlers off the west coast have been raised by some in the House as having an impact. There are numerous issues. In the Deputy's own river, the Moy, people have talked about the possible impact of seals on the salmon stocks. I do not think it would be popular to suggest that there should be a seal-culling scheme. I think that would be very difficult and my officials would not be happy with that, though it has been suggested. Equally, it has been suggested that cormorants are having a huge impact in Limerick by taking salmon from the water. There are a number of issues.

With regard to the larger salmon farms Deputy Calleary spoke about, BIM had plans in Galway Bay off Inis Oírr which were subsequently withdrawn. I attended Comhdháil na nOileán on Inishbofin last week where there were representatives from Inishturk, an island in the Deputy's constituency. They had a different view in terms of-----

Theirs is sheltered.

Yes. They would like to see a fish farm proceed-----

In a sheltered area.

-----in terms of its possible benefits to the local community. I commented that there is this disagreement between the larger fish farms and the smaller fish farms, such as off Clare Island and that planned for Inishturk, which local communities feel are very important to sustain an island population. There is a disagreement there.

The conditions are different.

I appreciate that with regard to the siting of it, but the disagreement is over the principle of it and the possible impact that sea lice have on returning fish stocks. That issue is there.

The Deputy spoke about some of the lovely initiatives, such as the ladies who are recovering from breast cancer. I was not aware of that, but it sounds like a wonderful initiative. Going out fishing takes a certain patience and I believe it would be therapeutic in that sense as well.

A number of Deputies commented on the cleaning of rivers. I understand that Inland Fisheries Ireland has never, and certainly not in the last year, refused a request to clean a river. The request has to come through the local authority or the OPW. It is subject to certain times of the year. Perhaps Inland Fisheries Ireland gets wrongly blamed on many occasions for this. If there are cases in which Inland Fisheries Ireland has refused a request, Deputies can bring them to my attention. There are a number of bodies involved. Inland Fisheries Ireland is a consultee on this. The OPW and the local authorities can apply. Inland Fisheries Ireland and the National Parks and Wildlife Service have a role as well. I appreciate that there may be a lot of red tape, but for any of the main drainage schemes on which Inland Fisheries Ireland has to be consulted, applications go through the local authorities and they have rules and regulations for how best to protect fish stocks.

All applications for river cleaning in Deputy Fitzmaurice's area were turned around and approved within two weeks. My officials engaged with the local authorities and advised and helped with paperwork. The relevant legislation is in place since 1949. It is not new paperwork that is strangling the system.

Deputy Fitzmaurice also commented about sewage pollution and he is right. That is the work that Irish Water is doing. There are, I think, still 43 locations where sewage is polluting waters, both inland and off our coast. It has a plan to carry out those works presently. Works are taking place in my constituency in Oughterard. That is the last major scheme required on the Corrib, which is the water source for many areas in the west. There has been investment over the years in those areas. Irish Water is going through those plans. The Deputy spoke about the outflow rules. The EPA set those rules. I agree that it would make sense if the water was 99% or 99.9% cleaner than it is. Unfortunately, the EPA sets those rules. I do not have the details on that particular case.

With regard to the fines under the original Act of 1959, it is the advice of the Attorney General to bring these into line with the fines Acts. They are being updated to be made relevant to today's world.

Deputy Mattie McGrath spoke about the appeals. I replied to him as I replied to Deputy Pringle. Whether it is theatrics or something else, I do not know why he always has to shout so loud. Anyway, he made some comments about Inland Fisheries Ireland staff.

Deputy O'Dowd, a former Minister of State with responsibility for fisheries, spoke highly of the work IFI does. The latter has a responsibility to uphold the law and to protect our fisheries and natural resources. Unfortunately, there are cases where staff have suffered direct threats. There was a case last year in Donegal involving fisheries officers who were doing their job catching people who had nets out on the river at night. There was an altercation and a gun was pulled and put directly to the head of an IFI officer. That is totally unacceptable. It is not right that Deputy Mattie McGrath or any Deputy here would disparage the reputation of the staff of IFI or its board members, who are now appointed through the Public Appointments Service.

A number of Deputies referred to septic tanks and sewerage schemes. We all know that there are issues of pollution in sewerage schemes and septic tanks. IFI, the Environmental Protection Agency and local authorities have a role in those schemes. Deputy Danny Healy-Rae stated that he cannot support the Bill. He mentioned septic tanks. We had an open day in February, which was a success. All Deputies were invited to meet national and local staff members of IFI. It was a success.

Deputy O'Dowd also mentioned eels. I am happy that the Deputy managed to get through to Irish Water about the issue relating to Castlebellingham.

It is very important to encourage young people. In that context, there is an initiative called Something Fishy. If people visit somethingfishy.ie, they will see that it is an educational programme which involves fisheries staff visiting schools.

Deputy Penrose spoke about the lake county, namely, County Westmeath. I know the potential that exists there. I am sure the Deputy's county will see investment under the national strategy for angling over the coming period if applications are made. Additional manpower is always an issue. We are always seeking extra resources. I was happy that there were some initiatives taken in respect of Cullion fish farm in County Westmeath. Thankfully, we were able to stop the threat of closure. The board of Inland Fisheries Ireland is considering the next steps. It has not come to me seeking any capital funding.

Deputy Wallace referred to pointless prosecutions in light of the fact that there are no fish left. Unfortunately, the River Slaney has been closed this year. I mentioned the drift net ban. Unfortunately, the impact of the fishing net ban was not as anticipated. The issue is that there was initially an increase in the level of return of salmon stocks for the first year but after that it did not happen as expected. The reasons for that are known. We talked about the catch and release policy. I have asked for a review of the catch and release policy for the 2018 season as a deterrent to possible poaching. It has been brought to my attention by people who operate on the Slaney. I am looking for that to be reviewed for the 2018 scheme. The Deputy spoke about issues of pollution. They are matters for Inland Fisheries Ireland, the local authorities and the EPA. We are continuing to monitor those matters.

I have covered many of the issues raised. On the previous occasion, Deputy Dooley spoke about issues involving Tulla and District Angling Club. We will follow up on that matter with Coillte. The Deputy also raised issues about access.

Deputy Niamh Smyth talked about investment. I have commented on the national strategy for angling.

I thank the Deputies who indicated their support for the Bill. I thank those in Fianna Fáil, the Labour Party and Sinn Féin who spoke in support of this legislation and the others who have spoken about the important work that IFI officers do. There is a requirement that the Bill be enacted speedily. I look forward to any amendment that will be made on Committee Stage.

Question put and agreed to.
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