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Seanad Éireann debate -
Thursday, 1 Jul 1976

Vol. 84 No. 9

Fisheries (Amendment) Bill, 1976: Second Stage (Resumed).

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

Before the adjournment I had been speaking about the general corpus of fisheries legislation. I know that this Bill is non-contentious and I want to enable people to draw discussion on it to a close. There are just one or two points I did not make before lunch I would like to make now. Boards of conservators are tremendously important in so far as what they try to achieve. I referred before lunch to the difficulty of obtaining democratic acceptance of such boards. Perhaps the Minister would reassure me but I believe that boards of conservators should be entitled to carry out research, that there should be a research function involved. I put these questions on conservation in this almost empty chamber. I agree with much of what the Parliamentary Secretary is trying to do but why is it not possible to do it now in view of the tremendous decay in what is available to the community from our rivers and lakes?

I should like to address the House about this other subject. I hope the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries and the Parliamentary Secretary, who has been so patient with us today, will enable us to introduce legislation quickly on the subject of fisheries. May I make an appeal to my fellow legislators in both Houses that on this occasion they would not be narrowly political about something that is a social matter? Can I give content to my remark? One can make demands about the number of drift-net licences from one part of the shore to another and be partial and say: "We want this." There is a national responsibility involved in conservation of stocks. These appeals are often partially political rather than nationally responsible. Our duty as a Seanad is to be nationally responsible in regard to the conditions which prevail in our rivers and lakes.

In another place on the notion of licencsing it was feared that the introduction of licences would represent policing. I wonder about its necessity? People who have gone on the rivers of Ireland are sensitive to what is happening. As a person who would like to preserve the resources of this country for my child or children I ask myself a straight question, to which there is a straight answer, about this awful, uncritical society, in which we live. Development and progress must take place; people must establish their houses but what about our rivers and lakes, our fish and the boards of conservators who look after them? I would say: think again about the boards of conservators and make them communally responsible. I referred before lunch to the class division, that the man who is referred to as the poacher is generally regarded as lower class and the man who fishes is generally referred to as the man of leisure. In this Chamber was there ever a greater indictment of the society in which we live, in which the working class might have embraced waterways and the fish life within them as their own, that they might not become the preserve of the few?

I find it difficult to restrain my emotion about the necessity for nationalising the inland fisheries system in general. The Parliamentary Secretary will know this. How will boards of conservators conserve if there is private ownership and the greed that I have expressed? Now I introduce a new complication. How will you ever conserve and have boards of conservators if there is not adequate research into the state of stocks? There is this mindless attitude in Ireland, unfortunately which can become popular, that the people who attack the indiscriminate use of drift nets—the Parliamentary Secretary will know what I speak about —that the people, for example, who attack poachers are attacking people who have a necessity to live. Yes, Sir, we have a necessity to live but our successors will have that necessity. We have a responsibility to this environment and to everything it offers which transcends our personal need. I would say about this Bill in general and it is appropriate to say it—it is just not good enough to say that we are once again deferring elections of boards of conservators without saying it—I can see that there are reasonable objections which might be raised, for example, that we needed to see the effects of the Water Pollution Bill and the Wildlife Bill. I referred to the disgraceful way in which the Wildlife Bill has been held up in the other House. I hope the Water Pollution Bill is not held up in such a disgraceful and partisan way.

The Senator should not refer in such terms to proceedings in another place.

I am grateful to the Cathaoirleach for reminding me of these things. What are we to do then on the Fisheries Bill? We can accept this Bill but we must stop the tokenism creeping into the political process.

Bills are not introduced merely by accident. They are not introduced for any flimsy reason. Bills ought to change situations. I should like to ask the Parliamentary Secretary to state that he is in favour of the community management of fisheries in the community interest. I feel that the Parliamentary Secretary will do that. He has had no serious objections to this Bill. How can one conserve without having established ownership, without having established limits? To whom do the rivers and lakes belong, to whom do our shores belong? We are living in this lacuna of legislation or decision. We have come to a time of demand but that time of demand was last year. Last year I said that the putting in of young fish stocks was a national responsibility and their taking out was a matter of private profitability. This society must make up its mind: does it want the distinction, does it want continually to make the distinction that the fisheries are for the usage of private people, not only that, for an élite amongst society? My view offered again and again in this House is that we have a responsibility. We have a responsibility about stocks. That responsibility about stocks can be best met nationally. It is trivial for people to stand up here and say that certain private fisheries are responsible. My hat on that. This House has to make up its mind. Give fishing back as a fine recreational activity to every child in this country. No less than that is what I have in mind. I will repeat it: give fishing and the right to encounter our rivers back as a right to every citizen and every child. That is our responsibility.

When the boards of conservators are appointed are people not going to ask themselves the questions: are these the anonymous boards we knew before who made decisions; do we know them, who are they and so on? I think they are. Once a decision has been made about fisheries policy then one can have a board of conservators.

In this House the position of salmon stocks has been referred to. That is a matter of scientific study. It is not true to say that salmon are an endless resource to be exploited. There is research to suggest the opposite. Are we to take cognisance of that research? I use this opportunity of saying what I would like from the Parliamentary Secretary—a Fisheries Consolidation Bill. We would welcome a Fisheries Consolidation Bill which would establish the rights and responsibilities adverted to in previous legislation. What should a Fisheries Consolidation Bill such as I have suggested do? It should establish responsibility for the waterways presently administered by the fishery conservators. This should be done with imaginative power. There should be a consolidation of legislation to enable life to continue in our rivers. I do not like to be adding words upon words on this subject but may I make the point that more and more of our young people are turning against the recreational pastimes of their parents and rejecting carefully patented and patterned entertainment and asking to encounter their environment? We can only allow them to encounter their environment when we have taken responsibility for the life that exists in our rivers. We have seen the Minister for Lands being congratulated, and rightly so, for the expansion of the forestry and wildlife service. Why the delay in implementing the Murphy Report? I do not consider the Murphy Report adequate. The Murphy Report was referred to in the other House. The Murphy Report was not adequate in that its data-base and research-base are too narrow. For example the commission collected information on Lough Corrib at a most unsuitable time.

Should a confrontation take place in this House on the issue of whether somebody should be charged £2 or not? There is a bigger issue involved. Senator Deasy made a reasonable point about indiscriminate netting at esturial points destroying breeding possibilities within rivers. Is that to be ignored? The local authorities have been proven to be indiscriminately polluting our rivers. Is that to remain the position? The whole question of whether the life in our waters belongs to the tourist or to the native has gone undebated. Is that to remain so? My view about the fishing industry— and this has been reflected in previous debates—is that I am not in favour of the narrow concept of keeping our rivers clean for tourists. I want our children to visit our rivers.

This Bill is a very interesting one. Why are we not giving boards of conservators real and broad powers? Why are we not asserting community powers? I am not attacking the Parliamentary Secretary, whose attitudes have been most progressive in this matter. I am disappointed with the reaction to this Bill in the other House. They have said that we have so many drift-nets in that part of the country and so many in some other part of the country. They seem to have missed the point of the Bill, which is to re-establish conservators who were established under a statute which spoke about conservation.

I would repeat what I said last week, that I wish more Senators were present to hear this debate. We have listened to the notion that industrialisation and conservation are in conflict. We have not heard representative voices. Why have we not heard these voices? Perhaps, after all, the Seanad is a progressive body and we have achieved a breakthrough about our relationship with the environment.

On the question of the establishment of the boards I would like to see water management becoming a community endeavour under the control of community councils who would elect people to manage the waters in their area. This is closely aligned with my philosophy of community ownership of the fisheries in general. In so far as the conservators exist I have not said I have any criticism of them. I offer an image to this House, one offered by one of the distinguished independent Senators, why should fishing become the province of an élite? Why should it not become one of the more regular recreations of our people as they encounter the water and life within it? It would inculcate a degree of humility. We are regularly visited by speeches suggesting that anything of a preservation nature is an enemy against progress. The proponents of progress have dishonoured democracy by not coming out in this House and saying they are in favour of industrialisation at any cost, of polluting rivers at any cost, of telling the fishermen to go to hell, of telling me to go to hell. They have not done that, so how democratic are they?

I hope the Parliamentary Secretary can assure me that he will introduce legislation which will sort out this nonsense once and for all. Let us be clear about what is involved and what is required of the legislation. There was a lot of fuss in the other House about a £2 increase in licence duty but there was less fuss about the private signs going up all over the country. The Parliamentary Secretary should say that he wants to conserve the maximum and the most variable sub-aquatic life and that he believes it is possible only by State legislation and State ownership. There are enlightened people—I am told—the owners of private fisheries who have been continually writing to me—and I should like to say to them that if the State establishes a scheme, what is wrong with it that they would not participate in it? What is wrong with it because the State runs it? The idea that on a Bill such as this we would not discuss the larger issues of conservation and allow to lie, without being announced, the fact that these fisheries are being advertised as attractive to tourists and not attractive to our own people is wrong. Travesty is involved in that.

Every year, as a sociologist, I read about the tremendous number of people who are forced to adopt occupations which are criminal and we keep everything away from them. In the Wildlife Bill we give much to the people. We celebrated the establishment of the forestry and wildlife service. We created a new concept of marine park. Why can we not conserve our rivers for all of our children, not as a tourist gimmick? When boards of conservators are established on a communal basis and some one perpetrates an act it will be seen as an anti-communal crime. It will, therefore, have much more force than a normal crime. For all of these reasons I appeal to the Minister to come quickly into this House with a proposal to communalise the fisheries of Ireland.

Is beag atá le rá agam. This Bill is of very limited content and its object is to postpone elections of the boards of conservators. I do not know why the need is there to postpone the elections. I agree with Senator M.D. Higgins that we need a longer debate on the fishery industry. We need to discuss the stocking of our rivers, the control of pollution in them and the extension of the fishing limits. It is a very broad field. The fishing industry is one of our greatest natural resources but it is the least developed. I hope we shall get a longer period to discuss the interests we all have in fishing, especially those of us who live around the coastline and where there are good salmon fishing rivers.

With regard to the allocation of drift- or draft-net licences I have known cases where many long-established traditional fishermen did not succeed in getting a licence whereas persons in professional fields succeeded in obtaining them. There is no point in saying a person must have been at least three years earning his living by fishing because it is well known that many sons of fishermen, unfortunately, have had to leave the country because fishing is a very precarious industry. For some reason or another they have returned to this home base and are prepared to take the risk of becoming share fishermen or to get boats of their own. This has happened along the Kerry coast, especially along the Cashin area. Because of that I ask the Parliamentary Secretary to give first claim on any licences to those who have a tradition of fishing in their families. Mar a dúirt mé cheana, tá súil agam go mbeidh lá eile againn chun cúrsaí iascaireachta na hÉireann a chur faoi díospóireacht anseo agus ní dhéanfaidh uair a cloig nó dhá uair a cloig an gnó chuige sin.

I should like to thank the Senators for their very constructive contributions to this debate. As I indicated, the Bill is of limited scope requesting the Houses of the Oireachtas to approve the extension of the lifetime of the existing boards of conservators for a further year and also to give the Minister authority to increase licences from 1977. Senators availed of the opportunity to discuss the duties of boards of conservators, with particular reference to our salmon industry.

Salmon is a very important species of fish in every sense of the word. This can be guaged from the fact that last year our income from the export of salmon exceeded £3 million and, as I mentioned in the Dáil, that is a sizable sum of money and is helping towards the development of our economy. It is also helping in supplementing in a reasonable way the livelihood of a large number of salmon fishermen and others engaged in the processing of such fish.

The question has arisen, particularly since 1972, of dangers to our stocks. As Senator Higgins pointed out it is not an endless resource and then the question arises, how do we exploit that resource for economical reasons or, to a lesser degree, for recreational reasons while at the same time conserving it for future generations, something that was emphasised so forcibly by Senator Higgins? That is the problem the Department have. It is the problem of everybody, the boards of conservators and other bodies or groups of individuals interested in the development of our fishery industry, inland and sea fisheries. It is for this reason that five or six years ago the then Government asked a group of people to submit a report on our inland fisheries. At the time that request was made it was not thought that our salmon stocks were in any danger. Fishing for salmon did not have the same image nor was it as extensive as it has been since 1972.

The last Fisheries Act, with the exception of minor amending Acts, was in 1959 and, naturally, it was mandatory to update our fishery laws and in so doing to get as much information as possible from every source. The major source of information was the Inland Fisheries' Commission Report which took five years to compile. I also asked for views from many other groups interested in our inland fisheries and from individuals who may have had useful or valuable suggestions for embodiment in any future legislation that may be formulated. The final reports and recommendations from such bodies and individuals were not received before December, 1975.

I gave the House an assurance 12 months ago that I expected to have this legislation ready for introduction in the Dáil or Seanad this summer. Unfortunately, I was unable to keep to that for reasons I am sure everyone will agree are justifiable and soundly based.

As I mentioned, the last major Bill in so far as fisheries are concerned was introduced in 1959. The reports came to us late in 1975 and I did not like to rush the formulation of this legislation. I thought it was too important and that we should try to get further views and analyse the views we had. It was important that we should devote time to the preparation of such comprehensive legislation. That we have done and I hope the legislation will be ready for the end of the year, or very early in 1977. I am hopeful that we may still have it if the time of the Houses will permit us to discuss it late this year.

I am sure Senators will agree that it was better to continue the existing system and to extend the lifetime of the boards of conservators for a further year than, as I mentioned, rushing the proposed legislation through. Our inland and sea fisheries are very important and by their contributions Senators have indicated their interest in the development of fisheries and, particularly, their interest in the conservation of the king of fish, the salmon, so far as rivers and the sea are concerned.

Our volume of catches is increasing as is the income from such catches. In 1974 the figure from exports of salmon was £1,880,000 and it has moved to £3,129,994 in 1975. That is a sizable increase and it was due mainly to an improvement in price but there was an increase in the volume of catches. That is something we could not ignore but the system by which salmon are caught here, by drift-net, has aroused a great deal of opposition. As I indicated in the Dáil and other places, when I spoke on this question, there is a great deal of resentment about the extent of salmon catches and the decision of the Government to increase the number of people allowed to use drift-nets for salmon fishing. I can say to those people that we are mindful that salmon needs to be conserved. The orders I have made continue from year to year and should the 1976 reports indicate that we are too liberal in so far as the catching of salmon is concerned, we would act with a view to conserving our stocks to a greater measure than we are doing at present, by further restrictions in the regulations attached to drift-netting licences. A number of regulations were brought in in the last few years but the Seanad, without labouring the point too much, will agree that any industry worth as much as salmon fishing is—it represents more than 30 per cent of our total income from fishing—cannot be passed by lightly and will say fishing must stop because if it continues as at present stocks will disappear.

I have great respect, as has every Member of this House, for scientific advice. Those of us who do not have technical qualification to assess the habits of salmon, where they come from and go to must be guided to a large extent by scientific advice. The Department of Agriculture and Fisheries are fortunate in having first-class scientific information available but, at the same time, there is a divergence of opinion. Some think that if people did not catch the salmon around the sea and particularly in the estuaries, they would all flow up the river and be available for the rod fishermen in the inland centres. However, my information is that that is not so. Salmon are just as likely to move off to Greenland or some other country as they are to move up our rivers to be caught by the rod fishermen.

That is something about which we are gaining information all the time. At the same time, as Senator Deasy pointed out, the Government made a change in 1973 when they took office. Some said it was a gamble, and a very dangerous one, that we were gambling with our salmon stocks and if we persisted they would disappear but, fortunately, that is not the position. The volume of catches is increasing and we are reasonably satisfied that they will continue to increase. Should the opposite prove to be the case we will take appropriate action.

Senator Lenihan, speaking for the Opposition, and other Senators who contributed welcomed the Bill. Senators are reasonably satisfied to give powers to the Minister to increase licences as from 1977. I am sure everybody appreciates that licence duties and fees which were not changed since 1848, 1925 and 1959 need adjustment.

Senator West and Senator Martin were rather forceful about illegal fishing and poaching. The Department are totally against illegal fishing and will do everything possible to put it down. Parliament makes laws for the country and whether those laws refer to our fisheries or to any other aspect of our life they must be adhered to and honoured until they are changed constitutionally. I agree with Senator Higgins that people are annoyed about the position of private fisheries but until such time as it is decided to change regulations and make new ones the laws as they are at present must be enforced. I agree it is exceptionally difficult to enforce the fishery regulations in many areas. We do not expect to eliminate illegal fishing but we are trying to reduce it to the lowest level possible.

We know that with salmon at present fetching £2 per lb. there is an incentive for people who feel they should have a licence, as well as those who have one, to catch those fish illegally. It is possible that they do not see themselves committing a serious breach of our laws. It is a serious breach of our laws. The number of licences is limited and any person who has not a licence and is not legally qualified and is apprehended, brought before our courts and is punished will not get any sympathy from the Department. I made that statement in the Dáil last week and I repeat it now, that I firmly believe in upholding our fishery laws and punishing those in breach of them.

I agree with Senator Deasy that waterkeepers have an exceptionally difficult job to do. Many of them are doing it effectively and efficiently. I do not think the scope of this Bill would warrant me taking up the time of the Seanad by saying what may be included in future legislation but I have never made a secret of the fact that our present system of protection needs a great deal of scrutiny. It is obsolete. The protection of our inland and sea fisheries is made all the more difficult by the system that obtains at present whereby waterkeepers are appointed to cater for developments in their own immediate locality. They move out and may catch some neighbour, friend or relative illegally fishing. It is very difficult in such instances to bring such a person before the court. When a man takes on such a job and gets paid for it it is mandatory on him to do his job faithfully even though he may create enemies for himself in his own locality.

It is no harm to ask ourselves before our legislation is finally formulated, if this position should obtain at all so far as the protection of our fisheries is concerned. We do not appoint members of the Garda Síochána to look after the maintenance of law and order in their own locality; we do not appoint a guard to catch his next door neighbour who may be a publican in breach of licensing laws.

Members of the Garda Síochána are sent to districts removed from their homes so that they are not near their neighbours and relatives. The same system should apply to fishery inspectors and waterkeepers. This would ensure that they did not operate in their own immediate localities. Senator Deasy mentioned the inadequacy of pay and the employment conditions of waterkeepers. Since I took over this office the remuneration of waterkeepers has been improved. At that time the flat rate was £17 or £18 per week and now it is £44 per week. It has stayed above the level of our inflationary trend during that period. I realised that the rates of pay for waterkeepers were entirely inadequate and that their conditions were not up to standard. I am hopeful that Parliament will devise a system to improve their standard further and to uplift their status. I do not see why there should be any reflection on waterkeepers. Their work is similar to the work of the Garda Síochána. They are trying to uphold the fishery laws which are made by Parliament. It is an essential job and they should be given every encouragement.

We are doing everything in our power to ensure that our fish stocks are not depleted. Restocking is attended to by scientists and other officers of the Department. Senator Higgins said that it would be an advantage to everybody if our fisheries were nationally owned. That statement has been made by Members of the Oireachtas in the past, including myself, because there is a general feeling that our lakes and rivers should be freely fished by all who are qualified to fish them—those who get a licence in accordance with the laws of the State. The main difficulty in this respect is that our fisheries are in private ownership and are therefore private property. The fisheries that are deemed to be private are owned by people who, in many cases, bought them from previous holders. It would be a great advantage to have our fisheries under national control. Perhaps they would be acquired by the State on a compensatory basis over a certain period.

Our inland fisheries are of exceptional importance and their acquisition would be an advantage. I have always been a firm believer in private enterprise but our lakes and rivers should be owned by the State. That would be a desirable objective. That is for an authority superior to me to determine. We should be throwing out these ideas and getting reactions to them. I know there would be complications but difficulties can be overcome if there is the will to overcome them. That does not mean we want to take property without giving compensation. There is no need to go into the question of how the fisheries became private property originally. I am sure everybody in the House knows how that happened.

Senators Deasy, West and Martin referred to pollution. I agree that we must do everything possible to eliminate pollution. Legislation drafted by the Department of Local Government was discussed in this House recently. We were closely associated with it because of the advice we gave in relation to our fisheries. We have appointed six pollution officers. We must be very watchful for pollution in so far as it affects our fisheries.

Senator Ahearne expressed disappointement with the number of licences allocated to Kerry. As I indicated in the Dáil yesterday, in 1972 when drift-net licences were freely available at £3 each only five persons in Kerry had licences. There are now nine licence holders and they did not meet the strict criteria laid down for qualification for licences. The allocation of licences is carried out impartially. The boards realise that licences are very important. They scrutinise all the applicants and determine allocations in accordance with the regulations laid down by the Department. If any complaints are made about the allocation of licences they will be examined by the Department. I am satisfied that in carrying out this exceptionally difficult task of determining applications for drift-net licences the boards are doing it to the best of their ability. That is the information at my disposal.

The licence fees seem to have the approval of the Seanad and I am glad that that is so. They need to be changed to provide additional funds for the further development of our inland fisheries. I do not think there were any other points raised. I should be only too pleased to meet any Member of the Seanad at any time to discuss any aspect of our inland fisheries.

Question put and agreed to.
Agreed to take remaining Stages today.
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