Our fisheries are not inconsiderable. I should like to quote from the reply in the Dáil of the Parliamentary Secretary on the debate on the Second Stage of this Bill. As reported at column 240 of the Official Report of Wednesday, 31st October, 1962, the Parliamentary Secretary is reported as saying:
So far this year, the figure in regard to salmon exports for the first eight months of the year is £700,000 —quite a substantial figure. In addition, exports of sea fish are in the region of £1,200,000, and the income from our angling tourists comes to another £1,200,000 approximately, so the figure in relation to visible and invisible exports in regard to fish in round figures is in the region of £3,000,000.
The total of £3,000,000 might be put down as a reasonable annual value of the potential of our fisheries. In that same reply, the Parliamentary Secretary stated that the number employed either directly or indirectly in fisheries is 10,512. The Parliamentary Secretary would quite possibly not have included in that figure all the boatmen and ghillies employed in fresh waters. From the beginning to the end of the fishing season, these people find very important and lucrative employment. Fishing provides them and their families with the difference in money to supplement the earning from their land that they would have to make up by emigration if that were not available to them.
The last return I have in respect of the amount of money available to all the boards of conservators is for the year 1960. The total amount of grants from the conservancy fund to all the boards of conservators, according to the official report of 1960, was £20,112. The amount from licence duties in the same year was £27,061 and the amount from fishery rates was £31,763. In other words the amount that was received by the boards of conservators from the conservancy fund and for moneys voted by the Oireachtas was actually less than the total amount contributed in licences and less than the total amount contributed in rates.
During the course of the debate in the Dáil, reference was made to the fact that some of our fisheries are owned by foreign colonels and other foreigners. As I mentioned earlier, I do not welcome those people into the country any more than any other person does but they may have a more than ordinary value. We ought to appreciate that those people buy the fisheries and apart from the boards of conservators or the Gardaí, keepers or any other persons, in very many cases they have their own private employees to protect those fisheries. They employ waterkeepers and in many ways they give employment. Another asset is that they fish less intensively than those who fish in leasehold or free waters. The result is that in many cases you have to depend for your stock of fish on the stock that remains in the waters which are owned by those people and which are not so intensively fished.
We have the same problem in connection with game. Everybody knows that with the breaking up of the large estates, with the passing away of these landed gentry and owners, with the breaking up of farms into small parcels, there came a free-for-all in the shooting down of game so that game stocks were reduced to such a level that now a frantic effort is being made by game protection societies to bring back to the country a stock of game which will afford reasonable enjoyment and prove an attraction to tourists. We should be very careful before we criticise unduly people who have ownership in large fisheries, lest driving them out of the country we find ourselves in the same position in regard to fish as we now find ourselves in regard to game.
In many of our fishing districts in the west of Ireland, whether it is because we have become more law-abiding or because of the forces arising out of emigration, many Garda stations are being closed down. Generally a kindly old Guard is left in possession. It would be considered unkind or uncharitable to move him out of the place and he is left holding the fort. I can assure you he is the least effective person in the district from the point of view of fishery protection. I would suggest that where there are only a few Gardaí left in a station, those who are left should be active, energetic, young people, people with ambition. It would be an excellent training ground for people who have passed the examination for Garda sergeant and who would be able to show, by their enthusiasm and application to duty in the protection of fisheries and other Garda duties, that they have qualifications for early promotion.
In addition, the Garda who are left have no means of locomotion except the ordinary bicycle. One of the things that has destroyed our game and also tends to destroy our fisheries is the motor car, the ease of passing from one place to another, and the speed with which those people can put their spoil into the back of a car and get away. Garda who are left at these stations get no inducement whatever for taking on the arduous and sometimes dangerous work of fishery protection. If a Garda earnestly does his duty and, in the protection of fisheries goes along into a mountain stream or into a mountainous district, and if, in the course of carrying out his duty, there is some wear and tear on his uniform and it is damaged, he gets no replacement of uniform, nor has he any special uniform. Even the boards of conservators, realising that the Garda are placed at a disadvantage, have been anxious where a successful prosecution has been brought—it may be wrong in principle but human nature is human nature even amongst Garda—that part of the fine should go to the Garda who brought the prosecution. That was put up to the Fisheries Division some time ago and it was turned down.
I should like to draw the attention of the Parliamentary Secretary to the illegal fishing that goes on in the estuaries of rivers. In my part of the country, it is quite a common thing for boats to go out and fish in the estuaries during the weekly close season. Whereas special exemption is made in this Bill for people who fish outside territorial limits, I have heard a criticism recently of a measure which was introduced in Britain where a licence of £10 has to be taken out for fishing within international waters. Even the length and size of nets used for fishing outside territorial waters or in international waters are limited. I do not think it is entirely necessary here, that the fishing in international waters is so great as to be a danger at present but I direct the attention of the Parliamentary Secretary to the fact that that is a matter of concern in Britain.
There is also a new definition in the Bill of deleterious matter and it covers the growing practice of dynamiting and poisoning the rivers. However, I should like to direct the Parliamentary Secretary's attention to the damage that has been done by Bord na Mona and the ESB, particularly in places where blanket bogs are being developed for the purpose of producing milled peat. Those areas are intensively drained.
During stormy weather milled peat is blown into the drains and, in heavy rainfall, there is a tremendous run down stream carrying peat in suspension. All fishing in those areas downstream from one of those development areas by rod and line is out. Worse than that, as the floods go down, the velocity of the water is reduced and the solid matter is precipitated and forms quite a coating on the bed of the river. This is a matter which my own board of conservators took up with Bord na Móna, and we got a certain way with them, but fishing downstream from one of those bog development areas is out.
I welcome the tightening up of the purchase of poached fish. As Deputy Dillon said in the other House, the persons or the hotel, lodging house or boarding house who purchase poached fish, are equally guilty with the poachers. If there was no market then there would not be the same inducement. Anybody who has anything to do with boards of conservators or with fishing in general will welcome the tightening up of the regulations in connection with the purchase of poached fish. We also welcome the steps which the Parliamentary Secretary has taken himself in varying the weekly close season in exceptional circumstances. That is a very wise precaution and I am sure it will be used with great judgment. It is a matter of the greatest importance.
I would suggest that there is another matter which might also be considered by the Parliamentary Secretary, and that is altering the open season. In very many cases of our free fisheries, for instance, the open season commences on the 13th February and many fish are only after spawning and are not mended. You often see fish on sale in Dublin that should not be offered for sale and are not fit to consume as food. Again, is the extension of the salmon season into late October in the interests of anybody, because the fish are in poor condition and should not be taken out of the water at the time? In addition to that, fish at that time are inclined to rise and catches are bigger, and a shortening of the open season would be of advantage.
In putting forward this case I am only making the case that my board of conservators have considered and agreed on. I can say also that my Board are working in closest co-operation and harmony with the Council of the boards of conservators, who have made many suggestions to the Minister in connection with the preparation of this Bill. The man who goes out to fish for salmon must, in the first place, have ownership of a place or else be a lessee either himself or with others of a fishery or in partnership in a club. Where salmon fishing is involved there is involved an annual payment of not less than £25. Next he has to pay his £4 fishing licence, and very many of those owners make private subscriptions to the boards of conservators to enable the boards to employ men whole-time on fishery protection. In return for that, the average catch per rod works out, according to the latest return in the 1960 report, at 3½ salmon or, say, four salmon. If, therefore, we say a word on behalf of the man who is laying out his money and getting back on average four salmon a year, a word spoken on his behalf is fully justified.
The next point I should like to put to the Parliamentary Secretary is the question of the seven day licences for the taking of salmon or trout. The amount of abuses in connection with that justifies me in asking the Parliamentary Secretary to abolish the seven day licences, because in the first place people do not take out the licence until they have fished for a day or so with somebody, and afterwards they are very liberal in allowing themselves an interpretation of when seven days have ended. You have the 21 day licence for £2 which should be enforced rather than the seven day licence.
In connection with free fisheries, tributes have been paid to the work being done by the Inland Fisheries Trust. I think the Trust was set up and not given proper financing. It was envisaged at the beginning that people fishing for brown trout would have to pay an annual licence of 5/-, which is a ridiculous figure in the present day money values. If you take it that any person who goes out to fish can increase his catch by two per week, I would certainly feel that he would be amply compensated even if he had to pay a 10/- licence. It should not be applied to people whose land was adjoining any fishery, but, apart from that, it might be enforced.
Section 5 of the Bill deals with the qualifications of members of Boards of Conservators. As drafted at the present time, I think it will operate entirely in the opposite direction to what was in mind. The section says that "A person shall not be eligible at any particular time for the office of conservator for any electoral division unless (a) he resides or possesses real property in the fishery district which includes that electoral division," and other things.
A sine qua non is that he must reside in or have property in the fishery district. I am a member of a club which has leased a fishery from the Land Commission over a time which is now in its third period of 15 years. We are in possession of that for more than 32 years at the moment. Not one member of the club lives in the fishery district although we live just immediately outside it.
In order to become eligible to sit on the board of conservators it was necessary for certain members to buy property. That club had held a fishery for 32 years and during that 32 years, long before any Fisheries Bill was introduced, the members had been operating a private hatchery. I should pay tribute in this House to Dean Jackson, an uncle of Senator Stanford, who ran that hatchery in his own private yard for years and years, on behalf of the club. All the fingerlings from that private hatchery were thrown into the fishery district, which was outside the area in which all the members of the club lived, and in connection with which none of the members of the club was eligible to be a member of the board of conservators and will not be eligible under this Bill.
I suggest to the Parliamentary Secretary that this section should be amended by substituting the word "or" for "and" in line 39 so that he could either reside in the district, have property in the district or, if elected for that electoral division, would be entitled to vote because he was a licensed holder or is the rated occupier of a fishery in the fishery district, the rateable value of which is less than fifty pounds, and so on. Perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary can introduce "a rated occupier by way of being a lessee or a board". I want him to bear in mind that the purpose he has in mind is not brought out in this section but rather the reverse.
There is another section to which I should like to direct attention. It is the section dealing with disqualification of members of boards of conservators. The members of every board of conservators are not at loggerheads with one another. Some boards that I know have been working very assiduously in the interests of the protection and development of fisheries and there has never been any question of difference between the rod men and the net men. They have been equally interested.
If the stock of fish in a fishery district is increased, they are there for the rod men and also for the people fishing in the estuary.
The Principal Act states that a person who absents himself during a period of six consecutive months from all meetings of the board shall be disqualified for the whole of that period for which he was elected. The period for a board of conservators is now increased from three to five years. In general, not more than four meetings are necessary in a year and it is always possible that a person might miss a meeting for business or health reasons or other causes. He might be attending the Seanad, as I am here, doing what he thinks is public business, and might miss a meeting of the board of conservators and thereby disqualify himself for the whole of the period of that board.
I would again refer to the subsection (3) in Section 7. I think a member of a board of conservators who is disqualified more than twice in any period of office, under Section 31, shall not be eligible for re-election. In other words, if a man missed one meeting through reasons of health or otherwise, that would be quite all right but if he missed more than two meetings in a five-year period—mind you—which would be reasonable enough, he is disqualified. If left as it stands, you are liable to have some boards without any members.
There is another matter that I should like to bring to the Parliamentary Secretary's notice, that is, the possibility for very extensive development in propagation in my district. There is a fresh water lake there. Some years ago fishing on fresh water was prohibited by law. There went into that lake each year from 1,000 to 1,200 salmon. It is an extraordinary lake, for the reason that fish do not rise to the fly or the bait. It is Lake Carramore. When the fish get into that lake, they pass up and if there is an early run of fish from February to March they are completely useless. They would be excellent stock for a hatchery in that district. There are from 1,000 to 1,200 fish. You may not get them all but you would get sufficient to be able to produce 2 million or 3 million fish to plant out into the various streams and rivers in that fishery district. I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary to consider the development of Carramore Lake as a hatchery.
I have lived up to the reputation that has been established by the engineer members of the Seanad and have spoken at great length but I hope I will not have to be persuasive about the points I have made, which are self-evident. I have intervened in this debate because I know quite a considerable amount in connection with the operation of boards of conservators and, on their behalf, I welcome the Bill. Indeed, I and the members of the board that I represent would welcome any Bill that would be introduced by any person at any time which would tend to protect and improve the fisheries of the district.
I can assure the Parliamentary Secretary that it is the desire of my board to give him every possible assistance. My own desire is, remembering the many happy hours I spent angling, that when I pass on I shall leave the fisheries in my district in a better condition than I found them.