I move:
Go ndeontar suim Bhreise ná raghaidh thar £10 chun íoctha an mhuirir a thiocfaidh chun bheith iníoctha i rith na blíana dar críoch an 31adh Márta, 1935, chun Tuarastail agus Costaisí i dtaobh Iascach Mara agus Intíre, maraon le hIldeontaisí-i-gCabhair.
That a Supplementary sum not exceeding £10 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending 31st March, 1935, for salaries and expenses in connection with Sea and Inland Fisheries, including sundry Grants-in-Aid.
I should like to give an explanation as to how the item E.E. (1)—Losses, £3,694—arose. It is in connection with the service between Galway and the Aran Islands. About the year 1912 the former Congested Districts Board, with a view to facilitating communication between the Aran Islands and the mainland, advanced to the Galway Bay Steamboat Company a sum of £7,500 for the purchase of the S.S. "Dun Aengus." Repayment of the advance was to be by half yearly instalments over a period of 27 years; and on that basis, the total amount due to be paid in principal and interest would be £10,069 10s. 8d. Nothing was received from the Company since 1933; and, at that time, £6,376 0s. 2d. had been repaid, leaving £3,693 10s. 6d. outstanding.
Apart from the capital provided for the acquisition of the steamer, a subsidy of £1,100 per annum was paid to the Company and this continued up to 1926. In 1926, an investigation into the working of this scheme was made by officers of the Minister for Industry and Commerce and as a result certain rearrangements were decided upon. The Company were allowed to suspend payment of their loan instalments for the four years ending 1929 and to advance correspondingly the date for repayment of the final instalment. Subsidy at the rate of £1,000 per annum was continued until 1929. Towards the end of 1929 the Company undertook the working of a tender for the Galway Harbour Commissioners in connection with liners visiting Galway; and as the crew of the "Dun Aengus" were mainly employed on this work, the loss on the working of the Company was reduced. This enabled the subsidy to be reduced to £500 for the year 1930 and £600 for the year 1931.
In 1932, a specially heavy overhaul of the "Dun Aengus" necessitated the subsidy being increased to £1,000 for that year. The arrangement for a varying subsidy has never been regarded as satisfactory. Subsequently, the Minister for Industry and Commerce in consultation with the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Agriculture, arranged to have the balance on the loan account remitted in full and the annual subsidy fixed at a reduced amount. The reduced subsidy has been fixed at £300 per annum and will continue to be paid in respect of the years 1933 to 1939. It will continue thereafter unless the arrangement in regard to the Galway-Aran Service is terminated by six months' notice to be given either by the Minister for Industry and Commerce or by the Company, subject to the proviso that should this subsidy prove to have been insufficient to cover the aggregate loss on working in the five years, ending 31st December, 1937 or in a subsequent period of five years, the Company shall be recouped the amount by which expenditure upon necessary overhaul, beyond what is recoverable from Insurers or third parties, shall exceed £1,200.
The second item in this Supplementary Estimate to which I wish to refer, is sub-head F. (1.)—Grants to Boards of Conservators. Under Section 14 (1) of the Fisheries (Tidal Waters) Act, 1934, every board of conservators within whose district there are tidal waters to which the Act applies is entitled to a grant in each fishery year equivalent to the amount of fishery rate on the fisheries in such tidal waters that obtained on the 1st day of January, 1933. In the Ballyshannon fishery district, the amount of such rates for the standard year, as specified, in respect of the fisheries in the tidal waters was £540. As a result of the decision in what has come to be known as the "Erne Fisheries Case" no rates were received by the conservators for the tidal fishery during the fishery year 1st October, 1933, to 30th September, 1934, and, accordingly, the sum of £540 falls to be paid to the Ballyshannon Board. From the amounts now submitted by way of Supplementary Estimates namely, £3,694, plus £540, making a total of £4,234, we must deduct a sum of £3,706 representing an excess in the Appropriations in Aid of the Vote, as estimated for the current financial year. That reduces the amount required to £528, and deducting from that figure certain savings which will be effected on other sub-heads, amounting to £518 in all, leaves the net total required by way of Supplementary Estimate at £10.
