The salmon fishermen, those who fish for salmon on a commercial basis, have been under very powerful attack for some years past. It has become evident, particularly in the past four years, that there is in existence a powerful lobby of people who are opposed to the use of drift nets and even draft nets for the catching of salmon. This lobby represents some of the most influential personages in the industrial and commercial life of the country. I have some experience of this lobby and the weight and finances that are available to them in their attack particularly against the drift net fishermen. They have sponsored advertisements in public newspapers and they are responsible for articles in the papers that pointedly attack the drift net fishermen. They have accused them of being responsible for the possible extinction of salmon as a species.
As far back as 1967 this attack was carried out by that lobby. The use of drift nets off the Galway coast was prohibited in 1967. I attended certain meetings at that time and discussions were held among local small farmers and part-time fishermen as to how we could make it legal to use drift nets off the west coast. There were three fishery districts involved, Ballinakill, Connemara and Galway.
The Minister at the time had the authority to hold a public inquiry and to decide whether he would allow drift netting off the Galway coast again. It was barred under a law of 1908. At the inquiry these people had to show their faces. They emerged represented by some of the leading senior counsel in the country. The money and funds were behind the lobby. It was a lobby of riparian owners, whose sole interests is in maintaining their own position, the private ownership of some of the most valuable inland salmon fisheries in the country.
The argument used at that time in opposing the legalising of drift netting for salmon off the Galway coast, a strong argument made by eminent lawyers on behalf of the lobby, was that if the Minister conceded the request in this instance it would threaten the life of salmon, and they said we could say goodbye to salmon as a species in our rivers. The Minister used wise judgment when he came to decide on the arguments made for and against drift netting. Happily he decided in favour of the fishermen who brought that application, through me, before him and to the public inquiry that followed.
The figures, as recorded in the publication of the Inland Fisheries Commission, including appendices, show the catches from 1969 to 1974. Despite the fact that the Minister allowed drift netting in those three fishery districts there is no indication of a fall-off in the quantity of salmon or in the number of species. There is no indication of any threat to the salmon continuing as a species in the waters of this country.
Those people with vested interests have used emotional arguments to oppose the small commercial fishermen who use boats to fish for salmon by drifting off our coasts. They have been using those arguments for so long that the statistics are disproving them. However, they still persist, and it is sad to see a new Minister, fresh in the Department, already influenced by this lobby. He is giving in and conceding to the arguments they have made and which they will continue to make. The salmon drift net fishermen have been under attack for some years past, and it is a matter of great regret that a new Minister has imposed another restriction on them.
The restriction on this occasion will hit hardest in the southern part of the country. It will not have the same effect in the waters off the Galway and Mayo coasts. There is a need for the larger net in the southern area, and that need has been long established. If there was not such a need these fishermen would be very foolish to use a 60 mesh net. Has the Minister or the Parliamentary Secretary ever tried to haul in a 60 mesh net? Do they know the amount of muscle that is required to drag in those nets into small boats? Having dragged in the net from the sea, possibly in rough weather, the fishermen may find only one salmon or no salmon in the net. The net has then to be put out again and hauled in. I have gone out with these fishermen and I was amazed at their preseverance in their very difficult business of making a living. If it was not necessary to use a 60 mesh net in those waters I am sure they would use a 30 mesh net, as is being used mainly off the Galway coast. Why should they impose this extra hardship on themselves if it was not the only way to fish successfully for salmon? It is necessary to use the larger net because of the deeper waters and the conditions that apply in the area in being close to shipping lanes. This does not apply to the west coast.
The Minister adopted a completely new attitude yesterday and again today in the course of his speech regarding his Department and the use of the Navy in fishing protection services off our coasts.
For many years there have been well publicised complaints that foreign owned fishing trawlers have been poaching in Irish fishing waters along the west and down to the south, and we are aware that in recent years some of those foreign owned vessels have been poaching in the salmon grounds. I have never heard a complaint that Irish owned trawlers were passing out those miles of drift netting the Minister referred to and were in fact fishing illegally 15, 20 and 30 miles out from the coast. I have never heard that allegation made except against foreign owned trawlers. It amazed me to hear the Minister make that allegation against the Mayo trawler owners. It was unfortunate that he mentioned even the size of some of the boats, which would clearly indicate whether he had certain persons in mind. I have checked with Deputy Gallagher, and I understand that the largest size trawler fishing off the Mayo coast is a 65-foot vessel. The Minister referred to larger sized ones, which are obviously not Mayo owned. After allowing the foreign owned trawlers to poach due to an inadequate fishery protection service, we are now, apparently, to instruct the Navy that they are to patrol all the Irish trawlers to ensure they are not throwing out nets for salmon. If the Minister has evidence which would possibly justify this extraordinary action on his part he should have given it to the House, but he did not.
The Minister stated that there were cases where 22,000 salmon were taken by large Irish trawlers which were fishing illegally. He did not state where the salmon were landed. He did not give us any further information. It creates a very great doubt in our minds as to whether this is a bottle of smoke the Minister is building up for himself. I ask him to study the fishing industry on the ground, get out of his office, go down and talk to those people, study the boats, the gear and the equipment they are using around the coasts, see them fishing in the bad weather as in the fine weather, see the conditions in which they operate and judge for himself the justification for his recent directive, to be implemented through some meeting next week, that the Irish navy are to receive instructions from two Ministers, the Minister for Defence and the Minister for Fisheries, to direct their attention to Irish trawlers reputedly drifting for salmon off the Mayo coast.
If anybody heard about it surely Deputy Gallagher, who has been a fisherman and who has represented fishermen on Bord Iascaigh Mhara for many years and who has very close connection with the trade, would know about this. He knows every person involved in the fishing industry along the Mayo and Galway coast. He expressed his amazement, during the course of the discussion, at the Minister's allegation. It escapes me why the matter assumes the importance the Minister has given it. I am sure it also escapes other Members, particularly on this side of the House.
I ask the Minister to be very careful and to thread very warily in introducing restrictions against drift net fishermen, to weigh the matter well before he takes any action. There is a powerful lobby which is presenting one side of the picture. The riparian interests are pointing the finger at the drift net fishermen as being the destroyers of a species which has existed in the country for many hundreds of years. They have no scientific basis for the allegation. The Minister opened his remarks by saying that all scientific evidence available to him showed that the species was in danger. If there is one species in the world, about which there is very little scientific knowledge, it is the salmon. Many books have been written but the extent of the questions unanswered in regard to the life cycle of the salmon is quite amazing. If the Minister is informing the House that scientific evidence is a bundle of statistics given to him by officials of his Department, then I question his decision to introduce those restrictions and whatever further ones he has in mind.
The salmon has baffled scientists since time immemorial but our Minister has all the scientific knowledge presented to him in his Department. This is a wonderful discovery. I am sure if they write a book about it it will be very much in demand. All sorts of theories exist about the life cycle of the salmon. If riparian owners are being represented in the Department, as they were until quite recently, in certain individuals, it is a matter of regret. I warn the Minister to thread warily, weigh everything carefully and not believe all the propaganda which has been pouring out from this source over the past ten years. It has not been established, scientifically or otherwise, that the salmon species is in danger. What they said ten years ago has been disproved in the years in between. If there is some new scientific knowledge available it was not made available to the House.
I never heard the Parliamentary Secretary give the House scientific information in regard to the life span of the salmon or scientific proof that the salmon species was in danger. Any child can examine statistics. The statistics show that the catch from drift netting has increased substantially during the past ten years, and because of this the Department and the riparian owners argue that we must stop drift netting because if this goes on the salmon will disappear. That is not a scientific analysis of the effect of drift netting, the more efficient nets which are now being manufactured or the greater availability of small boats and engines than were in the past when these men relied on the oar.
This is balanced on the other side by a drop in the draft catch to a certain extent. If the Department, representing as they seem to be the views of the riparian owners, are disturbed that the quantity of salmon being caught in the country will have this effect on the continuance of the salmon as a species then let them cut out the trap catches at the estuaries, which are owned by the people who are making the argument against the drift net fishermen. Why should we tolerate a situation in the country where in narrow rivers private owners are empowered under the law to catch unlimited quantities of salmon, which have no chance of escape? The drift net fishermen must take their chance with the elements, the light, the waves, the wind and be restricted to very short hours during the week at a certain time in the year in the vast expanse of the seas. We are told they are the danger men. The way the regulations are drawn up, a huge quantity of salmon are and will continue to pass the draft and drift nets. Those salmon should be allowed free access up the rivers to spawn. They should not be slaughtered in a narrow river by riparian or privately owned fisheries.
These people have carried out dirty tricks that have never been reported and about which they have never been brought to court. There is supposed to be a place called the Queen's Gap—I suppose that is now an historical name —where they have been seen and have been known to throw stones in order to guide the salmon back into the nets. That is illegal. Has any of them ever been prosecuted for so doing? Has any of them ever appeared before a judge? Has any of their equipment ever been confiscated? It is like the story of the old cowboys: no, these are the good guys and the fellows out at sea are the bad guys. I am completely dismayed that the Minister considers them to be the bad guys. He said that today, and that he expected to be daubed as believing that they were bad guys. He made a similar remark about boats.
Anybody with any knowledge of fishermen will know that damn few of them ever vote. The fishermen know that themselves. That is why they have felt recently, when their industry came under the microscope when major decisions were required—because they were not a political force their plea fell on deaf ears in regard to the establishment of a 50-mile exclusive band for them around our coast. If the weather is right and an election is held at a time of the year when fish are to be caught the fishermen, unfortunately for the politicians, have been known to remain at sea and not come in to vote. To contend that the motivation of the Fianna Fáil Party in putting down this motion was one of catching votes can be dismissed out of hand. We are concerned to ensure that a small section of our community will not be walked on by bureaucracy or by big brother in the person of the present Minister. In representing their views and in fighting to defend them we are not motivated by the couple of votes the Minister seems to think are so important to us. We are motivated because we want to see justice done, justice to large sections of the community as well as to the small. And the minority—and they are a very small minority—who earn their living from the sea deserve proper representation of their views just as do the large sections, such as the farmers, represented by such powerful organisations as the IFA.
Unfortunately the Minister has left the House. We understand he has gone to meet some people in the fishing industry, and we hope he will listen to their counsel. It is a pity he has not been here to hear the excellent case made by Deputy Brosnan who has practical knowledge of the drift-net sea fishing industry in his own county, Cork.
I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary to reconsider the bye-laws introduced restricting the number of licences, particulary that under discussion here in regard to the size of the mesh. These restrictions on the number of licences were introduced before the Parliamentary Secretary came into office. Anything new of such nature demands annual review until a proper pattern is established. Unfortunately the Parliamentary Secretary has acted quite stubbornly in this matter and has insisted on letting matters remain as they were. I have pleaded with him here time and time again to reconsider the bye-laws and the restrictions on the number of licences as it applies under existing regulations.
Island fishermen in my constituency, off the coast of Galway, have had no opportunity of applying for drift net licences because of the recent history following the inquiry of 1968, when it was found that there was no tradition of drift net fishing there because the prohibition existed. When the prohibition was lifted and the order made allowing licences to be obtained the Aran Island community were not aware, at that time, that that was a viable proposition for them. It is by trial and error only that things can be found out. That discovery was not made in 1969, but rather around the year 1971—that drift netting could be carried out successfully from the island. Now the position is that the Inishmaan community cannot obtain a licence under the regulations as drawn up at present. Neither can the Inisheer community. There exist about four or five licences on Inishmore, those two islands representing a population of some 2,000.
The Aran Islands constitute the backbone of the sea-fishing industry off the west coast. They have shown the lead; they have taken the larger boats, given employment and have been responsible for the catches landed at Galway Harbour. Those who own the larger boats can employ only five or six people while the small boat owner has to seek his living from lobster and line fishing which is very hazardous. But the regulations, as they obtain at present, make no concession to such islanders. It is dreadful to see that prohibition continuing. My previous pleas have failed and I expect this one will also but I cannot speak on drift net fishing without mentioning such people. However, I reiterate that plea for those poor people living on small western islands and who are deprived of whatever little income they could derive from salmon drift-net fishing because the Parliamentary Secretary and the Minister stubbornly refuse to change the regulations even very slightly.
The same applies to other islands, not merely those off the Galway coast—Bofin, Turbot, Clare, but particularly Bofin and the Aran Islands where an exception should and has not been made. I make a final plea to the Parliamentary Secretary to consider making such an exception.
Finally I add my voice to the excellent cases made by Deputies Gallagher and Brosnan while I was present in the House and to the other speeches made by Members from this side I did not hear. I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary to reconsider reverting to the 30 mesh and meeting the fishermen again, when it might be possible to find a suitable compromise. But to hold out for the reduction to 30 without any hope of a change will mean a loss of income and employment in these times, which is something I am sure Members on all sides of the House would like to avoid.
