The object of this section is to enable the Minister to establish an advisory council which would advise him, as and when the need arises, on various aspects of wildlife conservation. The setting up of such a council is an important feature of the Bill and has been whole-heartedly welcomed. Having regard to the necessarily wide definition of " fauna " and " flora " comprehended by the term " wildlife ", it is clearly desirable to have available to the Minister a representative, well-qualified and informed source of advice in connection with certain aspects of the Bill, particularly in relation to policy matters, settling objectives and implementing programmes. The Minister will, of course, also have the advice of his own departmental staff and it is the latter who will actually carry out the programmes decided by him.
SECTION 13.
This is possibly the most important section of the Bill. I am not at all happy with it because, as I see it, it has not one iota of power. Subsection (2) provides:
The Council may, either of its own volition or at the request of the Minister, make recommendations to the Minister as to the Minister's general policy (including administrative policy) in relation to the conservation of wildlife or as to objectives to be fixed or programmes to be implemented by the Minister in relation to such conservation, but nothing in this subsection shall be construed as enabling the Council to make to the Minister any recommendation as regards a particular administrative matter.
They may make recommendations but " nothing in this subsection shall be construed as enabling the Council to make to the Minister any recommendation as regards a particular administrative matter." Subsection (3) provides:
The Minister shall take such steps as he considers appropriate to keep the Council informed of matters relating to the conservation of wildlife which are, in his opinion, likely to assist the Council in performing the functions assigned to it by subsection (2) of this section.
I have already read subsection (2). I should like the Minister to indicate to me what function this council would have. What satisfaction would any member of this council have? What assurance would he get that he was contributing in any way or that what he said was taken into account? What assurance would he have that the Minister would put into operation any recommendation made? Later we find that the Minister does not even have to advise them beforehand of what he is going to do. There is no obligation on him to do this. There is no obligation on him to do so. Can the Minister tell us the light in which he visualises this council; what satisfaction the members may get from their work on it and what contribution they may make?
In order to understand section 13 it is necessary to go back to section 11, which says it shall be a function of the Minister to secure the conservation of wildlife. In that section the Minister is being given the function, the duty, to conserve wildlife within the limits of this measure. Section 13 provides that the Minister shall, by order, establish a body which shall be known as the Wildlife Advisory Council. The whole nub of the section lies in those words " Advisory Council ". Down through the years the Forestry and Wildlife Service of my Department have had an excellent relationship with the various voluntary bodies. There has been close consultation between them on conservation matters. Since becoming Minister it has been my privilege to meet many members of those voluntary bodies.
I understand also that these bodies were consulted in relation to this legislation and that they advised on it. The idea behind section 13 is that there would be a representative council of people possessed of a wide knowledge in the field of conservation in respect of fauna and flora and of wildlife in general. It is the intention of this section that the wisdom, experience and knowledge of members of the council will be available in relation to all matters in this field.
Deputy Tunney suggests that no self-respecting conservationist would take a seat on this council. We shall see whether he is right. He poses the question that the Minister might set up the council and then disregard it completely. He suggests that the Minister might not even consult them about what he intended to do in regard to wildlife. I cannot see that situation arising. It is not the object of the section, which provides for the obtaining of knowledge, advice and suggestions on all these matters. If any Minister should be so arrogant or so insensitive to the advice of the council to the extent to which Deputy Tunney suggests, he would have a mass resignation on his hands. I cannot see anything like that happening. Certainly, for so long as I am Minister for Lands, it will not happen. The whole object of the section is to continue in a formal manner the excellent informal relationship which has existed down through the years between the Forestry and Wildlife Service of my Department and the various people throughout the country interested in the conservation of wildlife.
The Minister has referred back to section 11, but has not dealt with the point I made about his function according to subsection (1) of section 11. Does he regard that function as being in accordance with the word as defined in the definition section?
Although one is plural and the other singular?
I understand it is covered by the Interpretation Act.
Mr. Kitt
I would endorse what Deputy Tunney said in relation to the vagueness of this section. The Minister uses the word " may " in subsection (2) but he does not specify when the council will be established. It has emanated from the discussions that this council will have no teeth whatever.
Regarding the council's membership, can the Minister tell us what will be the position regarding local representation? I ask the question in the knowledge that, if the Minister has not the confidence of the local community, the legislation will not be effective. Could we have a situation, for instance, where officials in Dublin or another centre would assume all responsibility for plans and so on while the local people would be expected to assume the responsibility for all the conservation? The use of the word " may " in this context suggests that the Minister may either consult with or disregard the council as he wishes.
First, there is an obligation on the Minister to establish this council. Regarding the time of its establishment I can tell the Deputy that this will be sooner rather than later, that I would regard it as a priority to have it established once the Bill has been enacted.
The Deputy suggests that the council will have no teeth. I concede that straightaway. It is not intended to have teeth in the sense that it is not intended to be enabled to order the Minister to do anything. It is purely an advisory council.
Deputy Kitt raises the question of the sort of people who will make up this council. My idea is that they will be situated geographically in such a way as to cover the country. I visualise it as being a fairly large council, comprised, say of 20 to 30 members. I am not committing myself on that but it is my thinking at present. Subsection (1) provides that:
The members of the Council shall be appointed by the Minister and shall include such number of persons, by reason of their knowledge or experience of, or interest in, agriculture, fisheries, field sports, the conservation of wildlife or some other science, as he considers will ensure that the Council will assist materially in the furtherance of wildlife conservation.
Mr. Kitt
I cannot accept that appointing the members in the geographical way suggested by the Minister will meet the situation. For instance, there are variations from area to area in regard to the type of agriculture engaged in. Is it intended that there will be a member in a specific area?
Perhaps I did not make myself clear. The Deputy must tie up my reference to the question of covering the country geographically with subsection (7) which spells out the type of person required.
Mr. Kitt
I was thinking of the grazing of turloughs. If you had not got a person who knew about that type of agriculture, conservation in that area would not be useful.
The Deputy may rest assured that I am very conscious of the fact that a great portion of our wildlife is to be found in the west of Ireland.
We are reversing that balance.
There are regional considerations too.
This seems to be the first body which has not been given an Irish name. I hope that is accidental. Bord na gCapall operates in an area in which many of the people could not be regarded as afficionados of the Gaelic language. Nevertheless, its name has gone into popular parlance. GORTA is the name of our Freedom from Hunger Council. This name has also gone into popular parlance. I should like the Minister to take me seriously about this. I know there are people here to whom the language means nothing but some of us regard the language as important. It would be very simple to devise an Irish name for this body.
We are dealing with an entirely English version of the Bill at present.
I should like an expert opinion on this. As I understand it, when a statutory body is set up even in the English version, the Irish and English names are given as a matter of normal parliamentary practice. Is it accidental that it has not been included on this occasion?
There is nothing significant in it.
I will accept the Minister's assurance.
It might be considered incongruous to have pages and pages of English with three Irish words stuck in the middle.
Most statutory bodies ab initio have an English counterpart. The subject matter which this Bill deals with is an area in which an Irish title would be appropriate.
There is no particular significance in the fact that it has not been included.
Is an Irish name envisaged for this Bill?
No. The Bill has been produced in——
The big difference between this and the boards to which Deputy Haughey refers is that they were established by legislation. This council has no power whatsoever.
If it is that bad the name will be all the more important.
The Minister has stated that the 1930 Act provided for the setting up of a consultative council. It was not obligatory on the Minister, but provision was made in that Act for the establishment of a consultative council. In this Bill we have provision for a council which has been established but as far as I am concerned it means practically nothing. In the times in which we live most people like job satisfaction. The Minister may speak for himself and say that as far as he is concerned he hopes that people will accept membership and attend the council, but that does not alter the fact that the legislation makes no provision for the Minister's likes or dislikes. The Minister talked about the function residing in him under this legislation.
It might be better to set up a special council which would be representative of all the agencies envisaged here. In view of the fact that that is not the position, we must look at the establishment of the council as envisaged here. The council will have no power and the Minister will not be obliged to advise it of any decisions. The Minister is quite sure that people will accept membership. I am quite sure that, initially, they would be attracted to the council but I am anticipating their frustration when they discover they are not being heeded. No self-respecting person will continue to serve on a committee which ab initio tells him he has no function whatsoever.
Responsibility for the conservation of wildlife is vested in the Minister by section 11. The Minister shall be answerable to Dáil Éireann for his efforts to conserve flora and fauna or his failure to conserve it. Normally the Minister's Estimate will come up once a year and the Minister will be subject to question, and if members of the Committee or a Council appointed under section 13 become frustrated because there is no action by the Minister, you may be certain that it will not be very long until that becomes known and until the Minister is told in the House that he will have to answer for it. It is not as if we in the Department of Lands, particularly our Forest and Wildlife Service, were embarking on something new. We are really only formalising and extending an informal arrangement that has been going on over the years between the Department, and the people interested in the conservation of wildlife, hunting and fowling. The difference between the Act of 1930, section 31 (1), was that then it was stated that the Minister may establish by order a consultative council, and in this section 13, the Minister shall. I repeat that we are not taking a step in the dark here. There has been excellent relationship between those people interested in what I call fowling or hunting, shooting and conservation of wildlife down through the years and I am satisfied that that will now continue on a formal basis.
I am not condemning the Minister except on the basis of what is here. The Minister is saying that, supposing these people become frustrated, we will have it in the Dáil. The Minister has no case to answer because the Minister can say to these people " You accepted membership of that council knowing the position. Surely you read section 13 which gave you no power whatsoever? Section 13 put on me no obligation except to consult your council. Section 13 did not oblige me to tell you of anything I was doing ".
Section 13 envisages to any reasonable man an exchange of views. It envisages the Minister seeking information from the council. It says that the council may at the Minister's request or on its own initiative make proposals to the Minister or make suggestions.
Yes, but the Minister need not accept any.
We may disagree in principle on this, but it is not proposed to give the council authority to oblige the Minister to do anything or to take any positive steps itself. I go back to the opening line, which says it is an advisory council. In the field of law you might as well say that the Law Reform Committee is a purposeless body, that it has no teeth, that it can only report and make suggestions about the reforms of law, that it cannot reform the law.
I would not want this council to be in a position to order the Minister or in any way to abuse the Minister. I do not say, having regard to the totality of the legislation, that we could envisage a council with tremendous power, but I thought that at least the Minister would do the members of the council and the council as a whole the honour of advising them or indicating to them decisions which the Minister proposed making and at least invite their comments on them. The section does not even require the Minister to do that.
In subsection (2):
The Council may, either of its own volition or at the request of the Minister, make recommendations.
Subsection (3) says:
The Minister shall take such steps as he considers appropriate to keep the Council informed of matters relating to the conservation of wildlife which are, in his opinion, likely to assist the Council in performing the functions assigned to it.
(4) The Minister may request the Council to furnish to him its opinion in relation to any function assigned to him by this Act.
Subsection (2) says:
Make recommendations to the Minister as to the Minister's general policy.
Is not that a bit diffuse? Does it mean they cannot make a recommendation on a specific matter?
It means that it is not intended that they should make representations on what is generally known as the day-to-day running of a Department. It envisages that they should make recommendations on policy matters.
Yes, but it says " as to the Minister's general policy". It seems to me that this is unusual wording and it seems to make them a very general, diffuse sort of body. It seems to prevent them from making a recommendation to the Minister to do something on a specific thing. They can only advise the Minister in a general way of their policy. Secondly, the Minister seems to be anxious to emasculate himself as much as possible in this Bill.
I am being accused of emasculating the committee here.
In subsection (6) it says:
Before making an order under this section which contains provisions relating to the constitution of the Council, the Minister shall consult any Minister of State or a body established by or regulated under statute considered by the Minister to be concerned.
Why does the Minister have to consult other Minister's of State just to set up a council?
If the Deputy reads on, subsection (7) says that certain qualifications are set out, but I might consult other Ministers for the purpose of ascertaining qualifications and that sort of thing.
Subsection (6) says that " the Minister shall ". The Minister must consult other Ministers before the Minister's advisory council can be set up. That is not a very sustaining state of affairs.
To be fair, look at the last words on the last line—" considered by the Minister to be concerned".
". . . or a body established by or regulated under statute considered by the Minister to be concerned."
The next point I want to make is in relation to subsection (7). The Minister will say that I have no amendment down and I will reply in advance that I did not have time to put down an amendment. But I would suggest in agreement with some of the points put forward by Deputy Tunney, that subsection (7) should specify bodies, from which the members of the Game Council would be drawn. The Minister knows very well that the danger when setting up a council is that some Minister's will succumb to the temptation to point the political finger. I know the Minister shudders at such a thought. I will not look back on the last couple of years to give some instances where what we fear greatly has happened.
That could be a slightly shortsighted view, Deputy.
I think we might gain more respect for this council, even as an advisory council, if certain bodies were stipulated who can put names forward to the Minister.
I am advised that it is inadvisable to write into Acts of Parliament unincorporated bodies, non-statutory bodies, who may cease to exist after about 40 years, or who might change their names. If you write in one body, where would you stop? You might create jealousy—I do not mean that in any petty sense of the word—or resentment.
Could the Minister by regulation afterwards stipulate that, perhaps, half the members would be nominated by the different bodies? There is a good deal in what has been said. Has the Minister authority in any part of the Bill to do that? Irrespective of what Government were in office, I always argued in the past that voluntary organisations who have done valuable work down through the years should have the right to nominate members. Perhaps they could nominate four and the Minister could put two of them on the board. He would have the final say.
Having looked into it, the position is as I have stated it. I am advised against writing organisations into the Bill for at least two reasons. One is that they may change, or disappear, or go out of existence. If that is not a sufficiently valid argument, I am also advised that to write in some and not all would lead to difficulties.
Could regulations be made afterwards?
With all due respect that is bad advice. I know many cases where voluntary organisations are written into Acts of Parliament. I can think of hundreds of instances where they are mentioned in Acts of Parliament as putting forward representatives. If the Minister is prepared to give grants of public money to bodies—
My opinion is—I am not committing myself—that subsection (5) which sets out the constitution of the council is wide enough to do what Deputy L'Estrange has in mind.
The only concern the Minister has expressed so far is that some bodies might change. It would be very easy to ascertain what bodies were likely to change. I do not think that is a valid argument. The Minister said if you include some and not others there is a problem. The word " include " is in the subsection. Subsection (7) is rather vague. It refers to ". . . by reason of their knowledge or experience . . ." I should like to see that made much stronger. It should refer to their proven knowledge and to recognised bodies in this field. We all know who they are.
I am not arguing that we should specifically mention any body. We could include in the Bill the words " voluntary bodies interested in, " or words to that effect.
Most of the voluntary bodies are interested in hunting and shooting and fowling, not all. This is a conservation Bill, the primary object of which is to conserve wildlife, fauna and flora.
Take the RDS for instance, a very important body which could have a vital interest in this.
Subsection (7) is wide enough to cover all members of the council. It says:
The members of the Council shall be appointed by the Minister and shall include such number of persons, by reason of their knowledge or experience of, or interest in, agriculture, fisheries, field sports, the conservation of wildlife or some other science, as he considers will ensure that the Council will assist materially in the furtherance of wildlife conservation.
The point about that subsection is that it is so wide the Minister could appoint anyone he liked.
They will have to be qualified. I am answerable to the House which is the greatest guarantee any democracy has.
There is a body connected with conservation of wild birds. I have had quite a lot of correspondence with them. They are no more permanent, for instance, than the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. That does not mean the Society of St. Vincent de Paul cannot be written into an Act of Parliament. The view is shared on all sides of the House that the Minister should stipulate the bodies.
Is there anything further on the section?
If the Minister will not move beyond that can we take it—
All those interests will be covered. If Deputies want to put down an amendment, it will be dealt with.
We will put down an amendment. We will consult with Deputy L'Estrange and put down an amendment which will have his support. We are opposing the section.