The next is number 52, Marine Service. The sum in this Estimate is £10,000. I move it.
DAIL IN COMMITTEE. ESTIMATES. - MARINE SERVICE.
I am rather curious about the Marine Service. I do not know exactly if it is the ordinary Marine Service or whether it has anything at all to do with some other service. It is said here that it is under the Ministry of Trade and Commerce. Are there any War Services at all in connection with the Estimates on this sheet?
Not that I know.
None of them is War?
No, I do not think so.
Then Item F, "Coast Watching Service," is purely the Ordinary Marine Service?
I think so.
And not War?
No.
I mean it is normal?
Normal, yes.
I would like to ask the Minister for Finance what are the actual duties of the Coast Watching Service and from what ranks they are recruited. "Services in connection with wrecks and salvages, £50," that is another item I would like some information on. "Relief of Distressed Seamen, £50." That item, if any of them come ashore, to my mind is very little. In fact if it is the Mercantile Marine, the grant, if you could give it, should be ten millions instead of ten thousand, because Ireland will never be worth a rap until we carry our own produce in our own ships' bottoms.
I would like to know what exactly the Coast Watching Service is. Is it a service for watching poachers on the fisheries, which I understand are by the hundred destroying our fisheries—trawlers from France and other countries—or is it for contraband of war, or for things that may be imported into this country to the detriment of the country, and which have been imported to the detriment of the country for the past five or six months? It is pretty widely known that for some months back contraband of war is being imported; and I think, like the good policeman who, when he sees a man about to commit a crime, there and then catches hold of him and prevents him committing the crime rather than letting him do so and then arresting him, it would be a very good policy for the Government to create some service for the searching of vessels in order to prevent the import of articles or contraband of war. We might not have so much trouble if these irresponsible people did not get hold of such articles so easily. I understand that the Minister is engaged in building up a Marine Investigation Service. We have at the moment use of the Customs Department, a very useful Department, in which we may place much confidence in the way of searching and all that, but their work, I understand, is confined principally to shore work. What we want, to my mind, at the moment is some patrol boats. We may have them, but I simply want the information. Along the Western coasts we want some patrol boats, in which these men now being enrolled will be placed, and approach vessels as they come along and search them for contraband and for articles which we would not like to see coming in. Those houses to which Deputy Doyle referred as being destroyed, the coastguard stations, might be used for the purpose of these watchers and members of the Marine Investigation Department. They could be housed there, and have their boats there quite convenient, and if they were they would be able to protect our coasts not only from poachers on the fisheries, but also from those others who are importing articles to the detriment of the State.
I am quite in agreement with what Deputy Hennessy says so far as the Coast Service is concerned. I presume that this Marine Service will really be the Coastguard Service of the future. It rather astonishes me to find that out of the whole total of £10,000 about £8,000 goes in salaries and incidental expenses. Again, there is a most extraordinary item—an extortionate item as far as I can see—and that is "Fees for Survey, £1,700," and the services in connection with wrecks and salvage from which these fees were presumably paid only amounts to £50. Then there is preservation of life from shipwreck, £550. Most of that is done by the fishermen, and I do not know how this £550 can possibly be expended for the relief of the distressed seamen. The Coast Watching Service I presume means the laymen who were appointed round about the coast during the war in order to look out for German submarines; but of all the items on the list this one of "Fees on account of services" is one of the most extortionate. I would like some enlightenment on the whole Marine Service. There is no enlightenment at all in this leaf that has been given and the Deputies have only to guess the whole thing.
I think it would be only right that the Minister in his reply to the criticisms that have been levelled at this should tell us what particular functions this Department is carrying out. Everybody who has risen seems to be in the dark as to what the object of the Department really is. I certainly agree with Mr. Hennessy, who raised the question of coast watching, that it is an urgent necessity that boats be got to patrol the coasts at the present time, but I disagree with him when he says that it should be for the purpose of searching vessels for contraband. I think that this Department ought to be concerned with looking after the fisheries and preventing poachers and steam-trawlers from the other side from coming into our waters. As I said before, I think the President should give the Dáil some idea of what function this particular Department is carrying out, as everybody seems to be in the dark about it.
The criticism from Deputy McBride is, I am afraid, a little off-side. If it be an extortion it is an extortion in our favour. It will be observed that it comes into credit. "Coast-watching Service, £3,000," that service is an estimate to provide for an alternative to the Coast-guards. I understand that a Committee is sitting on this matter, and will probably submit a report before the end of the year. If they do not we will most probably save the £3,000, and if they do I expect that we will get some information before they actually decide to set up the new service.
Motion made and question put:
"That the Dáil in Committee, having considered the Estimate for Marine Service in 1922-23, and having passed a Vote on Account of £6,000 for the period to the 6th December, 1922, recommend that the full Estimate of £10,000 for the Financial Year 1922-23 be adopted in due course by the Oireachtas."
Agreed.