Mr. John Wilde Crosbie:

I know about Lough Swilly in particular, where a 12-year licence was awarded in approximately 1990. It expired, but the operation continued for three years without any licence. In 2006, the then Minister amended the Fisheries (Amendment) Act 1997 to provide that, if one had an application for a licence pending, one could continue to fish under one's older licence. This is what happened in Lough Swilly. The people who are seeding and dredging implanted oysters, which displace the natural oysters that local fishermen used to dredge, have been operating without a licence for longer than they did with their original licence.

Under a provision in the 1997 Act, the Minister would determine an application for a licence within four months. If that was not possible, the Minister would give reasons and extend the period. However, this section was never brought into force. Instead, the then Minister introduced an amendment to the Act in 2006 allowing the applicant for a licence renewal to operate as if he or she possessed a licence. The judge in the case referred to the possibility that the Statute of Limitations would allow the person to gain permanent rights in the area after a period of 20 years or so on, given the fact that his or her activity was currently unlicensed.

For this reason, Ms Dubsky suggests in her written submission that, when the new legislation is enacted as opposed to brought into force, time limits should be applied to commencement sections, which allow the Minister to approach Acts in a piecemeal fashion. In this way, if the Minister had not implemented the full Act within a certain period, he or she would need to explain to the Oireachtas the failure to do so. The Oireachtas passes an Act that must be used in its entirety to make sense, yet the Minister may pick and choose what he wants to use. He can leave out sections that balance the rights of everyone concerned and only use those sections preferred by him or whatever industry he favours at the time.

In that context, it bears upon the commencement section as well as on the importance of including control of aquaculture in the new Bill.