I wish to mention some of the points in this draft resolution. We are told in paragraph 3 that fishing plans may not discriminate as between fishermen of the member states of the Community or affect their rights of access. There appear to be a number of points in the same document contradicting paragraph 3. The latter part of the first paragraph refers to the employment of the natural geographical advantages in catch possibilities within a few hours' steaming time from home ports so as to favour balanced development in line with progressive improvement of fish stocks. I fail to see the meaning of these contradictory statements in one document. There is clearly a contradiction. In the first place we are told there cannot be any discrimination between member states and then we are told that people will enjoy a natural geographical advantage and that they will have catch possibilities within a few hours' steaming time from home ports. The vagueness of that statement is quite extraordinary; it can only be described as woolly and has no relevance whatsoever. How can one define "a few hours' steaming time" from a home port? It could be five miles and it could be 25 miles depending on the definition "a few". How can we agree even on an interim basis to any such statement?
Paragraph 6 states that fishing plans shall take into account that vessels which due to their limited range of operation can only exercise their activities close to the coast should have priority in coastal areas. This seems to be a direct contradiction of paragraph 3 which provides that there may not be any discrimination of any kind.
There is a further contradiction in paragraph 7. It is provided that the activities of other categories of vessels must be harmoniously introduced into the global fishing activity of all vessels operating in the area and in particular undue concentration of long-range vessels in areas closest to the coast should be prevented. I do not see how this can be done because of the statement in paragraph 3 that there may not be discrimination. How can we deny right of access?
This document would appear to set out to confuse us so that we do not know what is going on. I have spoken to fishermen and they have not the slightest idea what it means or what is proposed. I understand that the Government are at present drawing up plans, but nobody seems to have the slightest idea how those plans will affect our fishermen. It seems likely that our own fishermen will be excluded from large areas of Irish waters. It is a most extraordinary plan.
Paragraph 12 states:
Fishing plans may clearly identify vessel categories, fishing periods, types of gear, number of boats, species to be fished and other relevant data while ensuring that there is sufficient flexibility, for example, to enable replacement of vessels and to ensure right of passage, it being understood that fishing plans may be tailored to suit different circumstances.
All this adds up to confusion and contradiction. We as a party oppose any such plan. It cannot be for the benefit of the Irish fishing industry. Clearly, it will give certain countries within the EEC, notably France and Holland, the right to fish within six miles of our shores. They seem to be protected under this draft resolution by the 1964 London Convention, which gives them certain historical rights. I do not see how the Minister can deny for one minute that he has collapsed on the matter of the 50-mile exclusive limit and is now settling for a six-mile limit while he allows this document to be implemented even on an interim basis, if it is ever accepted. We are asking this House to see that it is not accepted. It is not what the fishing industry wants, it is not what the National Coalition Government were set to achieve, and it is not what Fianna Fáil promised before the election. It reneges on any promise made before the 1977 election.
We are asking that the Minister should go back to Brussels, refute this document and renegotiate on the basis of a 50-mile exclusive limit. That is what we were promised and that is what we expect to get. There are numerous quotations on the record of the House from a variety of Fianna Fáil speakers during that last Dáil session giving their support to a 50-mile exclusive limit and promising that once in power they would renegotiate the terms of the Treaty of Accession to ensure that such a limit would be obtained. This document will allow foreign fishermen to come within six miles of our shores. We have very vivid memories of what these people did when they were allowed to within six miles of our shores: our fisheries have not yet recovered from the damage. We have no reason to believe that they will not do the same thing again, given the chance. The likelihood is that they will perform exactly the same acts of plunder and poaching and that there will not be any fish left for any Irish fishermen within a short space of time.
In October 1976 the Coalition Government got an agreement at The Hague which gave the Irish fishing industry an outstanding chance to expand. These negotiations were conducted by Deputy FitzGerald, who was then Minister for Foreign Affairs. We gained considerable ground, principally the commitment from fellow members to the fact that the Irish fishing industry was a special case and was to be considered separately from all other members, including Great Britain.
The present Minister for Fisheries has let our case slide. We are now in the unhappy position that, where we had high hopes of a 50-mile exclusive fishery zone, we are now settling for six miles. Under the conditions of that agreement drawn up by the Council of Ministers we were also to be given the right to double our catch of fish between 1976 and 1979. Again, I fear the present Minister for Fisheries has collapsed on this issue. On the basis of recent figures published by An Bord Iascaigh Mhara the amount of fish we shall be allowed to catch in 1978 falls drastically short of what we were promised in The Hague Agreement of October 1976. At that time we were promised that we would be allowed double our catch. Our catch, according to Bord Iascaigh Mhara figures, in 1976 was 80,663 tons—I shall be kinder to the present Minister —on the basis of the previous year's figures, 75,188 tons, our catch for 1978 should be somewhere between 125,000 tons and 135,000 tons. I should like the Minister to explain how he has agreed to a catch of a mere 96,000 tons.
On the basis of the figures for 1976 our catch for 1977 should have been 108,000 tons, for 1978, 135,000 tons and for 1979, 162,000. But from the information available to us for the first half of 1977 it appears that not alone have we not increased our catch as promised but it has actually dropped. So, we cannot look forward to reaching the target which we had set ourselves in October 1976. Due to vast overfishing, our fishermen have not been able to get the quantities promised. Under the Minister's present proposals it is obvious that those figures, rather than double, will fall far short and we are deeply concerned that this should not be allowed to continue. We take exception to the fact that our quotas for herring for 1978 have been reduced, not increased according to the promise or plan in 1976. Our catch of herring in 1975 was 28,000 tons whereas the catch which we were told we would be allowed in 1978 is 22,000 tons.
This is a very serious matter. We were supposed to be in a position where we would double our catch but we are now in a position where there is a drastic fall. The excuse will be made that we shall increase our catch in other sectors. The only alternative fish to be caught are of very low quality and fetch an inferior price. The two species most likely to come into the reckoning in this regard are blue whiting and sprats neither of which fetches an even reasonably good price on the market and they produce a very poor return for the fishermen. We regard the dropping of the Irish fishermen's demand for an increase in their herring quota as being detrimental to our fishing industry. I believe the Minister has to tackle the job of going back and making sure that we get our due share of the fish that really sell well. No fish sells better at present than herring. Unfortunately, we have no vast stocks of cod which could be compared to herring. We have the herring and should be allowed to catch them and should not be fobbed off with some inferior species.
Repeatedly in previous debates prior to their coming into office, Fianna Fáil speakers told us that on no account would they settle for quotas, that they wanted Irish fishermen to catch as much as they could within the 50-mile limit. However, since the present Minister for Fisheries took over the emphasis has been more and more on a dilution of that promise or principle. We have gone from exclusive zone to special zone, to preferential zone and latterly there has been talk of a Community solution to the problem. This all adds up to dilution of the original promise. The word "quota" has crept in more and more. We are now told that the draft resolution with which we were recently presented will be based on fishing plans which in turn will be based on quotas and licences. Our experience of quotas and licences has been anything but happy. In the past, quotas have been an excuse for wholesale deception by foreigners. We have no reason to think that in future there will be a change for the better. The North Eastern Atlantic Fishing Commission found out this to their cost: countries took what they wanted. They were granted a certain quota and when they found their fleets had fished this quota within three or six months they merely continued to fish. I have no doubt that the French, the Dutch and the others, when they have fished their quotas off our coast—if they are allowed to do so and we intend to see that they are not—in three or six months will continue and nobody will stop them. The reason they will continue is that it will be a political decision and we shall be quite powerless because their attitude, as always, will be just to ride roughshod over smaller nations. That is what they have done off our coast for the past ten or 15 years; that is what they will continue to do; that is what they have done in recent times.
To emphasise my point I shall quote a figure which makes very vivid reading and gives a very good reason why we should never agree to a quota system where these people are involved. In 1976 in zone 6A which is off the north west coast of Donegal the Dutch were allocated a quota of 7,600 tons of herring. This is stated in Leaflet 84 produced by the Minister's Department. However, according to Leaflet 88 issued by the same Department last year the Dutch actually caught 21,039 tons of herring in that area. How could we ever expect those people to confine themselves to a quota? There they trebled their allocation because they had fished their quota within a matter of months. They had no intention of stopping at that point.
The whole system of quotas and licences is open to abuse. We have only to look towards our fishing system and at salmon licence escapades in recent years. People are fishing for salmon without licences. They are supposed to have them, but they get away without them. They have been doing so for years and doing it openly. Even some people who have licences are abusing them wholesale. From my observation of activities off the coast I have found Irish fishermen to be more honest and law-abiding than foreigners to whom we are going to grant licences and quotas. To think that these people will ever honour these quotas is to put one's head in the sand like an ostrich.
We have learned from recent talks of the very entrenched position taken up by the British. It is ironic that two years ago, in negotiations when we got agreement to be treated as a special case, the British were indifferent about their fishery limits. Now the wheel has turned full circle and the British are holding out for a better deal than obviously we are going to get under this draft resolution or, interim agreement as it is called. At that time the emphasis in Britain was on the long-distance fleet. They fished in Icelandic, Russian and Norwegian waters and the main catch was that highly valued fish, cod. They caught vast quantities of it, but suddenly with the imposition of 200-mile limits internationally the British fleet was shut out. Far from concentrating their efforts on their long-distance fleet activities they have now recognised that their future lies close to their own shores. The biggest confidence trick that has been pulled in the Brussels negotiations in recent years was pulled by the British on the Minister for Fisheries, Deputy Lenihan, when they took him by the hand and said "Let us go together and negotiate, because in unity there is strength". Little did our naïve Minister for Fisheries know that he was being led to the slaughter. They have somersaulted us; while we have settled for less they are demanding more, despite the fact that in the 1976 agreement we were the ones to be treated as a special case. Britain are now being treated as a special case and, like a spoiled child sitting in a corner, it looks as if they are going to get their way.
If the British Minister, Mr. Silkin, had not dug in his heels in Brussels two weeks ago we would not be talking about a fishing limit here this evening. We would be talking about a permanent common fisheries policy. The Minister may be thankful yet that Mr. Silkin has kept his options open because by all accounts the Minister for Fisheries has thrown away the whole game. The British even up to a year ago were prepared to settle for a 12-mile exclusive limit with preferential treatment up to 50 miles. We at that time were holding out for a 50-mile exclusive limit. I do not pretend that we were going to be hardline in that matter. We always said, as we say today, that we did not necessarily want everything inside the 50-mile exclusive limit. We were quite fair and we said we would catch what we could and if there were excess fish we would allow in our partners from the EEC to take what was there to be taken, in the interests of conservation. We never dug in our heels to the extent that we were going to act the dog in the manger and exclude everybody else. We would even take what excess fish were there on our terms. That is still our stand, but the British wanted only a 12-mile exclusive limit and they were willing to take the easy way from there up to 50 miles.
Once the British long-distance fleet collapsed and once they were hunted out of Icelandic, Norwegian and Russian waters their attitude changed. They have been scrapping and breaking up their long-distance trawlers for the last year or so and have turned their attention to coastal fishery activities. What has that meant? They have changed their strategy, and that is where our Minister for Fisheries is fooled up to his eyes. They saw that we were going to get an excellent deal on the basis of the October 1976 agreement. They decided that they had better string along with us and thereby they might do a lot better than they had previously hoped. This has happened to such an extent that not alone are we not going to get the 50 miles, but according to this document we are going to get only six miles. The Minister for Fisheries has made a disastrous mistake in aligning our case with that of the British. Events have proved this correct. I only hope he can retrieve the situation to some extent before it is too late, and it is getting late.
Our fishing industry must be allowed to expand at the rate promised in the 1976 agreement. As I pointed out earlier, with the total catch allocated for 1978, which is far short of what we were promised, this cannot be done. We have to keep the foreigners—even though they be our fellow-members in the EEC—far away from our coasts. Their catching power is too great for the limited amount of fish available. If they keep on catching it as they have been for years past a major expansion in our fishing industry is out of the question. Many Irish fishing boat owners at the moment are in serious financial difficulties and are finding it exceedingly difficult to pay their way. I will quote figures from a reply to a question I put down to the Minister for Fisheries on Tuesday 31 January. I asked him the number of purchasers of boats who were in arrears in their repayments to BIM. Summarised, the answer was that out of a total of 438 borrowers—that is people who were purchasing their boats—from BIM, 292 were in arrears. He can hardly state that we have a healthy fishing industry when two-thirds of our fishermen are in arrears with repayments on their boats.
How can we allow our total catch to be cut back when we were promised an expansion, when we were promised a doubling of it within three years? How can we allow the most valuable species of fish off our coasts to be denied to the Irish fishermen and replaced by fish which have a very poor market value, fish which are very difficult to catch because they are at great depths off the western coast? I refer to blue whiting. That is what the Minister is being fobbed off with. We are getting a cutback in our catch. We are getting a reduction in the quantity of the most valuable species at our disposal.
I realise there was a need for conservation of the herring stock. The time has come for the Minister to ask the EEC to allow Irish fishermen to commence fishing for herring in all zones off the Irish coast. Remember, we did not do the damage. The Dutch did it. Remember, the Irish fishing fleet, as presently constituted, are not capable of doing irreparable harm to the herring stocks off our coasts. Their catching power is quite limited. As we can see from the figures quoted, they are in serious financial trouble. They should be allowed back into the herring grounds to catch a reasonable amount of herring. It is very difficult for people on the south coast to survive when the Celtic Sea is closed continuously and there are considerable quantities of herring there. I do not believe any great damage would be done by allowing the Irish fishing fleet to fish in these waters for herring.
Why should we not? The Dutch are doing it. They have been fishing for herring in the Celtic Sea as long as the band has been ostensibly in existence. That is well known. They have been fishing for herring under the guise of mackerel fishing. This has been quite obvious. They have been seen fishing in the area on a considerable scale. I have seen them myself. There is no shortage of herring on the Dutch market, in processing concerns or on the open market. They are as plentiful as ever. We can be sure a sizeable quantity of that herring is coming from waters which are banned to Irish fishermen.
I should like to mention a few points on which the Minister promised recently to take action, but he has not done so. I should like to pinpoint the damage being done to our white fishing industry, that is the demersal end of it, by the Spaniards. Under the 1964 London Convention the Spaniards have certain rights up to 12 miles off our coasts, and six miles in certain cases, but I am told legally any rights they had were superseded by the 200-mile limit brought in by the Maritime Jurisdiction Act last year. They are being granted licences by the EEC. At the moment I am told something like 107 boats from Spain are being allowed to fish off our coasts. I am aware that only 68 of those boats can fish at any one time. When one drops out another comes in and 68 large Spanish boats are licensed to fish.
The Spanish fleet has increased out of all proportion in numbers and in the size of the boats. Gone are the days when they had small wooden 50 foot boats. Now they have 120 or 130 foot steel hull boats capable of catching a fantastic quantity. They are doing a lot of harm. They have been caught repeatedly in the past 12 or 15 months off our coasts. There have been up to 20 convictions in regard to boats fishing without a licence although they have been allocated 68 licences. It is time they were told to get out of EEC waters completely. Obviously they are making a play to set up a catch record for their proposed entry into the EEC. I do not see why our fishermen should have to suffer while these people are carrying on as they are at present.
On 1 December in answer to a parliamentary question the Minister promised to introduce legislation in January to increase fines for fishery offences to a realistic level. January has come and gone and there is no new legislation increasing those fines. It is imperative that this legislation should be brought in immediately, especially in view of a recent High Court decision. A number of people, including Bulgarians and Spaniards, were caught and had their gear confiscated, but now they will be allowed to retain it because of that High Court decision. It now appears that any boat caught in Irish waters recently can only be fined a maximum of £100. There was the added penalty that gear, sometimes worth hundreds of thousands of pounds could be confiscated. It is imperative that we introduce realistic fines in the order of £50,000 or £100,000 for illegal fishing within our limits.
To return to the essence of the motion, we feel the Minister has gone soft on the 50-mile exclusive limit. Every statement emanating from Brussels over the past seven months has shown he has weakened beyond all comprehension. We take exception to this because, in Government, we put up such a stern fight to win a foothold for Ireland which was lost in 1970 and 1972, lost in 1970 when the six members of the EEC drew up a common fisheries policy biased against all belief in their own favour. In 1972 when the Treaty of Accession was being negotiated, the Fianna Fáil Government made no attempt to right the wrong which had been done. They accepted the eventuality that by 1982 our fellow EEC members could fish right up to our shores. We retrieved that situation through the negotiating ability of our then Foreign Minister. Deputy FitzGerald. The Minister has lost that ground. He has let it slip away and we are now back where we started. We are in exactly the same position as we were in 1964. The Dutch and the French, the people who did all the damage to our fisheries are entitled to come within six miles of our shores if we are to believe this draft resolution we received from the Council of Ministers meeting.
That has been one of the biggest letdowns an Irish politician has ever given to the people of this country. We can ill afford it when we should be expanding in such a high job intensive industry as the fishing industry. It is so sad and so drastic that the Minister should tear up these proposals and say: "Interim agreement or not, we are not having it" and stick out for what was originally promised, what we originally fought for and what we were on the point of attaining—a 50-mile exclusive limit.
