This Bill should be seen as a second attempt on our part to protect the Irish fishing industry and to secure its future. On Wednesday, 8th December, 1976, this House authorised the Government to make an order extending Irish fishery limits to 200 miles. On that occasion we sought to persuade the Government at the same time as they were making that order to make another order reserving the first 50 miles of the 200 miles exclusively for Irish fishermen. That seemed to us to be necessary.
We were very much aware that the making of an order extending our fishing limits to 200 miles as and from 1st January, 1977, was a very important step from the point of view of our fishing industry. It was something that in normal circumstances everyone in this House would welcome. Fishermen, all those engaged in the fishing industry and members of the general public interested in the subject would give a warm welcome to the decision of the Government to extend our fishing limits to 200 miles. However, because the Government refused to make the order we asked them to make concurrently with the principal order, this extension of our fishery limits to 200 miles is illusory and is not guaranteed to confer any benefits whatever on Irish fishermen or on the fishing industry. Indeed, it is likely to be detrimental to the Irish fishing industry as things are developing.
Very briefly, I want to trace for the House the background against which we are putting forward this legislation. The measure speaks for itself. We are seeking to amend the Maritime Jurisdiction (Amendment) Act, 1964, by taking out of that Act the existing section 3 and inserting another new section 3. We are seeking to lay down in statutory form what should be the position in the future in regard to our coastal seas and the fish therein. It is worth while to read section 2 of our Bill which sets out the proposed new section 3. It states:
Section 3 of the Act of 1964 is hereby amended by the deletion of subsections (1) and (2) and the substitution of the following:—
"(1) Fishing in that portion of the exclusive fishery limits of the State which lies inside the line every point of which is at a distance of fifty nautical miles from the nearest point of the baseline shall be restricted exclusively to vessels operating from ports in the State.
(2) With respect to the portion of the exclusive fishery limits of the State which lies outside the line every point of which is at a distance of fifty nautical miles from the nearest point of the baseline, the states the fishing vessels of which may fish in that area and the conditions which they must observe while so fishing shall be determined by any regulation hereinafter adopted by the Council of Ministers of the European Economic Community in accordance with the provisions of the treaties governing Ireland's membership of that Community."
Our intention is perfectly clear and straightforward. This is our second attempt to secure the future of the Irish fishing industry. We failed to persuade the Government to make an order concurrently with the principal order. We are now returning to the fray and we are asking the House to legislate for the position. We are asking the House to legislate in a simple, straightforward manner. If this Bill is passed, the situation will be clear. Ireland will have new fishery limits of 200 miles. The first 50 miles will be reserved exclusively for vessels operating from ports in the State. The Bill stipulates that with regard to the other 150 miles out to 200 miles that portion of the seas will be governed by Community legislation in accordance with the obligations of our membership of the EEC. This step is urgently necessary now. If the House does not pass this legislation a totally disastrous situation will arise with regard to our fisheries as and from 1st January next.
European fishing in general has been going through a bad time and for some years catches have been decreasing by somewhat in the order of 10 per cent to 12 per cent per annum. Our fishing industry has deteriorated in line with the general deterioration on the European scene. The increase in fuel prices that occurred at the time of the oil crisis coincided with the drop in the price of fish throughout the world, and in particular white fish. The United States introduced certain restrictions on Eastern European countries and others which had been supplying the US market. They were prevented from doing so and they proceeded to unload their catches on the European markets. Prices for white fish were depressed at the same time that catches decreased. The catches went down because of the dramatic and catastrophic falling off in the herring catch and in our case the decline was almost entirely due to the decrease in the catch of herring.
That is what has prevailed in the past five years. However, there is another important and significant development, namely, that other countries throughout the world, 20 South American countries, the United States, Canada, Norway and Iceland proceeded to introduce 200-mile limits. From their point of view that was an excellent development, but it meant that fishing fleets which previously had fished in these waters were now to be excluded and were seeking fresh grounds in which to fish. The only worthwhile grounds left for them were the European waters, in which ours were the principal waters, and we now have a situation—let us face it—where deep water fleets are tied up at the quay walls in Grimsby and elsewhere waiting until 1st January to start fishing within the new 200-mile limit we declared here last Wednesday. That is the reality of the situation. It is very much a question of naked power fishing politics. Fleets in which there has been very heavy investment have been denied waters in which they fished for decades and they are now looking for new grounds and getting ready to start fishing in Irish waters and other European waters from 1st January and this presents us with a very serious and critical situation from the point of view of the future of our fishing industry.
It is clear to anybody who considers the situation that the only way in which the future of Irish fishing can be secured and guaranteed is by this country declaring that the first 50 miles of these new limits will be reserved exclusively for Irish fishing. There is no other way. The Minister for Foreign Affairs who is in charge of our negotiations in this area does not seem to understand the position. He replied at some length here to the debate on his own motion and our motion last Wednesday. I have read his speech carefully and I find it depressing and disturbing and I have analysed it carefully because it seems to me that he does not really understand the realities of the situation.
He talked at some length about his great achievement in securing in The Hague talks a promise that Ireland would be allowed to double her catch over the next three years. We pointed out to him that, as far as the first of these three years is concerned, 1977, he received a major setback in the proposals the Commission have sent him in confidence, but everybody knows what they are. They certainly do not tie in or relate to the alleged great promise made to him that Ireland would be able to double her catch over the next three years. What disturbed me most was his stating he had succeeded in getting this promise about doubling our catch without deviating one iota from our demand for a 50 mile limit. In other words, in his mind he sees this as two separate issues and, from some of the things he said, it is clear he regards the promise of doubling our catch over a three year period as most important. I quote from the Official Report of 8th December, column 373 of volume 295:
Let us be clear on this. What is important for us is not any particular means of securing that objective. The most important thing of all is to get it recognised that Ireland is in a special position, that this special position requires that we should have a continued and progressive development in fisheries when every other country is to be cut back and to get this as far as possible quantified in a form which is clear-cut and specific and guaranteed, and quantified it has been on the remarkable basis of the doubling of the catch in three years.
It is quite clear from that that the mind of the Minister for Foreign Affairs is focussed on what he calls his great achievement on getting a promise we can double our catch over a three year period and, in his mind, that is a separate issue altogether from our having a claim and demand to an exclusive limit of 50 miles. That is a fundamental mistake the Minister is making. These two things are meaningless when separated. A promise of doubling our catch over a three year period is nonsense unless it is allied to our procuring a 50 mile band. What hope is there of our doubling our catch if the nine member states and third countries are going to have freedom of access under some régime to all the waters between 12 miles and 200 miles? There is no possibility of our doubling our catch. We can double our catch within the next three years mainly through the exploitation of non-traditional species but I do not think we have any hope, and I believe everybody in the industry who knows the score will agree, of doubling our catch in the next three year period with our present fleet in traditional areas. But we can double our catch if we add a 50 mile band and if we have the capacity to exploit certain non-traditional species which have not formed part of our catch up to now. That is the only way it can be done. We cannot double or attempt to set about doubling our catch without an exclusive 50 mile band and I believe in his heart of hearts the Parliamentary Secretary, who knows a great deal more about the realities of the situation than does the Minister for Foreign Affairs, will agree with me in that.
I believe the Minister for Foreign Affairs does not really understand the basic issues. He got very upset when I made certain accusations against him. In the course of parliamentary give and take I may, unfortunately, have appeared to be impugning his personal honesty and integrity. I have no wish to do that, but his reaction does not come very well from a member of a Government, some of whose colleagues concentrate on personal character assassination, and why he should get so worked up about a legitimate parliamentary attack by me in this area is something I cannot understand.
At the end of his speech last Wednesday the Minister for Foreign Affairs indicated that he was very hurt that his integrity should be impugned here in the course of parliamentary debate. That is a rather finicky attitude for any parliamentarian to adopt about the cut and thrust of parliamentary debate and, if he feels that way about things, then he should have a word with some of his colleagues about the things they say from time to time about people on these benches.
The Minister for Foreign Affairs, those who supported him and a number of commentators in the media stated rightly that this is a very serious matter, with long term implications for us economically and socially, and that it should be dealt with on the highest level and should not be made a matter of party political scoring. I agree with that but, if one examines the speech made by the Minister for Foreign Affairs in dealing with our motion, one finds that a great deal of it was devoted to simple partisan politics. He seemed more concerned with proving that as a result of the negotiations accompanying our entry into the Community the Fianna Fáil Government left him in a very difficult position. A great deal of his speech was devoted to that aspect. I do not think that is true and I hope in the course of this contribution to reject that. But whether it is true or not, it does not contribute constructively to the present situation. As I say, he seemed far more concerned with scoring that cheap political party debating point than in outlining the present position and what is possible.
I believe we put forward a reasonably convincing case on the legal arguments in the debate last Wednesday. The Minister for Foreign Affairs did not rebut our legal arguments. He simply made ex cathedra statements that we were wrong legally. He did not prove how we were wrong, and I am inviting the Parliamentary Secretary to rebut the legal arguments which I am now going to make. Last Wednesday the Minister for Foreign Affairs contented himself with saying flatfootedly that we were wrong and that the law was not as we suggested it was, but he did not adduce any arguments in favour of that. He wanted the House just to accept his statement that such was the position. The Minister for Foreign Affairs occasionally falls into the error of thinking that if he talks quickly enough and at sufficient length he will persuade everybody of the validity of his case. That will not do in this instance. We are putting forward a very specific, factual and legal argument to him and we want it rebutted if it can be rebutted. We believe our argument is the one which he should be using, and that if, for instance, the French Government had the sort of legal basis we think we have for our claim, they would use it and push it to the ultimate limit.
The first step in the establishment of an EEC common fisheries policy was taken by the Community by the adoption of Regulation 2141/70. I have already mentioned, and I want to repeat, that that regulation was rushed in by the original Six in order to put themselves in a strong bargaining position in anticipation of the enlargement of the Community. That being so, I want to dispense with any suggestion that there is some strong moral case which the original Six can make in regard to fisheries and that we in Ireland are being hostile to the genuine Community spirit in insisting on a 50-mile limit and insisting on protecting the Irish fishing industry in the way we are pressing for. There is no such moral basis.
The next development was the enlargement of the Community, with all the discussions that took place in connection with that enlargement, eventually resulting in the Treaty of Accession which was incorporated for technical or protocol reasons into the Act of Accession. The interesting thing is that in the Act of Accession Articles 100 to 103 modified in a very substantial way Regulation 2141. That regulation was a very simple statement of the fact that there was to be a common fisheries policy, and all the member states of the community could fish in each others waters.
It is also interesting to note that Articles 100 to 103 applied not just to the three new member states but to all the nine member states. This is a very significant point which I want the House to take note of. We had the regulation establishing the common fisheries policy which applied among the Six. It was amended and modified by these articles of the Treaty of Accession. In every other case in that Treaty of Accession all the regulations and directives which constituted EEC policy at the time were derogated from or amended in some way in the case of the incoming three members, but there was no instance where they affected the rules obtaining between the original Six except in the case of fisheries. The authority for that is a man called Puissochet in his work The Enlargement of the European Communities, and I want to quote what he says about fishing rights in page 276:
3. Article 100 provides the possibility of derogation from the principle of non-discrimination established in Regulation No. 2141/70 for a period of 10 years, and not limited to the new Member States, but extending to all the Member States, new or original. It constitutes the only instance in the Act of Accession of a provision amending an existing Community rule in respect of the original Member States. As we know, the rule underlying the negotiations and the Act of Accession is based on the complete preservation of the Community patrimony among the six original Member States and the immediate or progressive endorsement of this patrimony by the new Member States. Fishing rights represent the only instance in which a temporary retrograde change in relation to the status of the law before accession became possible.
It is important that we realise that in the case of fisheries a very significant change took place. There is no gainsaying—and the words Puissochet used confirm this—that Regulation 2141 was amended and modified by the Treaty of Accession and what now governs Community law in regard to fisheries is Regulation 2141 as amended by the Treaty of Accession. That is a simple statement of the legal position. My argument is strengthened by the fact that the fisheries Articles 100 to 103 apply to all the nine member states, not just to the incoming three. Therefore, because it applied to all the nine member states, the six original members as well as the incoming three, it clearly was amending Regulation 2141. I go on from there to quote from Article 100 of the Treaty of Accession, paragraph 3 of which reads as follows:
If a member state extends its fishing limits in certain areas to 12 nautical miles, the existing fishing activities within 12 nautical miles must be so pursued that there is no retrograde change by comparison with the situation on 31st January, 1971.
I want to draw particular attention to the words: "If a member state extends its fishing limits in certain areas to 12 nautical miles...". Clearly, the Treaty of Accession, amending Article 2141, contemplated only 12 nautical miles and nothing else. The wording there makes it clear that there was no question in anybody's mind that anything else was involved except a regime covering 12 nautical miles. I am told by my lawyer friends that in all matters of contract and in all matters of international law there must be consensus ad idem or else the treaty or the contract is set aside. I suggest that there was a consensus ad idem governing 12 nautical miles and that was all that was in anybody's mind. The intention of the parties was to legislate in the Treaty of Accession for 12 nautical miles and no more.
How could one have consensus ad idem about something which did not exist at that time? In 1970 or 1971 there was no 200-mile limit. There was nothing known to anybody in the Community except six and 12 miles. Therefore, there could not be a consensus ad idem on anything outside 12 miles and I submit that it is incontrovertible that the wording of Article 100 makes it crystal clear that the Treaty of Accession, amending regulation 2141, only applied to six and 12 nautical miles. When this new matter of 200 miles comes in, there is no Community law governing the waters from 12 to 200 miles. It is a new situation which must be legislated for afresh. That is my argument and in putting it forward I am aware that I have the full support of the British Government and the British House of Parliament for it. The British dealt with the situation by doing exactly what we are asking the House to do, by legislating for it. They brought in a Bill, the Fishery Limits Bill, on 25th November, 1976. The first section of that extends the fishery limits to 200 miles while section 2 (1) states:
The Ministers may be order designate any country outside the United Kingdom, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man and, in relation to it, areas within British fishery limits in which, and descriptions of sea fish for which, fishing boats registered in that country may fish.
In other words, that section confers on British Ministers the right to legislate for the 200-mile limit by order. Clearly, the British Government's position is that there is no Community legislation governing this new situation and they will legislate for it by British order.
That was borne out by a statement made by Mr. Silkin in reply to an oral question on Common Fisheries Policy in the House of Commons on 9th December, 1976. I should like to quote from Hansard, volume 922, column 608 of that date:
Mr. Wall: I recognise the right hon. Gentleman's difficulties, but is he aware that the industry is becoming increasingly concerned at the lack of progress? Will he confirm that in legislation now passing through the House he has the power to impose an exclusive 50-mile British fisheries limit? Does he propose to use those powers?
Mr. Silkin, who was replying on behalf of the Government, said:
I say that it is vital to have the necessary powers. As for the 50-mile limit as an exclusive zone, the powers lie within the Bill.
Clearly, the British Government take the view, which is our view, that the situation is not covered by the existing Community legislation; that it can be legislated for and must be legislated for by the British Government. They have the power under their legislation to create an exclusive 50-mile limit and that is what we are asking the House to do for the benefit of Irish fishermen.