Dinny McGinley (Donegal South West, Fine Gael)

Tá lúcháir orm deis a bheith agam cúpla focal a rá ní amháin fán Bhille ach fá thionscal na hiascaireachta go ginearálta sa tír, go speisialta i dTír Chonaill. It is not often we speak on the difficulties and the potential of the fishing industry in Ireland and for that reason I welcome the opportunity to comment on how I see the industry, particularly in my county, and to speak on the Bill.

I have been here for a long time and have seen many Bills introduced. It is a long time, however, since I have witnessed any legislation receiving such a frosty reception, and that is putting it mildly. Even before the Bill was published, the Joint Committee on Communications, Marine and Natural Resources made its views known in no uncertain terms; it was opposed to it from beginning to end.

The committee members went to the trouble of going to Europe and meeting the authorities there. The response was that they did not understand the thinking, rationale or philosophy behind the introduction of the Bill. It is significant that all our MEPs bar one and a number from Northern Ireland stated they did not understand why this Bill was being introduced at a time the fishing industry is in deep crisis.

Like the Minister of State, I was born near a fishing port. My maiden speech in the House was on the fishing industry and the former Minister, Pádraig Flynn, was in the ministerial seat. I was allowed to speak for an hour. Most of my contribution was in Irish and the Minister understood about half of it. Since I entered the House, I have witnessed many changes in the fishing industry in my county and nationwide. I am familiar with ports.

Long before I entered the House, Bunbeg was a vibrant, thriving fishing port which had capacity for between 30 and 40 half deckers. Each boat had three or four crew members and, therefore, 120 families in that part of Gweedore made a living from fishing every year. This time of the year, they would have fished for herring. When I went to school, the chat between us was about how many crates each boat caught. If a boat had between 20 and 35 crates, it was doing well. During the summer, the boats fished for salmon and they fished for whatever was available at other times of the year. However, Bunbeg kept families in the area. They built their houses and educated and reared their children. Fishing provided a viable economy in that little region. The same applied to the islands off Donegal.

The next port along the coast is Burtonport. The great difficulty in this port 15 or 20 years ago was the availability of berths for trawlers and half deckers. The port provided many jobs onshore with all the industries associated with fishing represented. However, nowadays, do even two or three boats fish out of Burtonport? That is an indication of what is happening to the fishing industry.

Our pride and joy in Donegal is Killybegs, the premier fishing port in Ireland. When one drives through the town to the port, one cannot fail but to be impressed by it. It is a state-of-the-art port with the finest pier in the State. It is well deserved because the men and women of Killybegs have put a great deal into the fishing industry for generations. There is seldom a week I do not travel through the town but it has completely changed in recent years. Previously, between 1,000 and 1,500 people from Glencolumbkille, Donegal town, the Rosses and the Finn Valley, were employed in various processing plants at this time of year. It was the most significant industry in that part of Donegal. However, Killybegs is a dead town. I hope fortunes will improve and the town will return to its former glory. Despite the provision of a state-of-the-art pier, not enough fish are being landed to underpin jobs in the town.

The Government is presiding over the demise of the fishing industry. It has responded by introducing a draconian Bill and I cannot understand the rationale and philosophy behind it. A day does not go by without a fishing crisis. Honest fisherman going about their business and earning a livelihood are being towed into Rathmullan, Killybegs and other ports. The significance of this is that most of them are Irish. I seldom hear reports about the arrest of fishermen from other member states. Yesterday, the Catherine R, an Irish boat, was towed into port.

Crab fishermen are also in a predicament. They only have five or six boats but they have been tied up for the past week and a half. The fishermen are not permitted to engage in what they have invested in heavily over recent years. They have invested millions of euro in their boats but they are all tied up in port with 70 or 80 jobs in jeopardy. The largest crab processing factory in Europe at Meenaneary, Carrick, County Donegal, is under threat because the supply of fish has been interrupted. The dispute has serious implications for employment at the factory. According to the latest bulletins, the Minister of State is trying to break the impasse so that the fishermen can return to sea. However, he should redouble his efforts to end the scandal of having these boats tied up during their peak season. The highest prices will be achieved for crab between now and Christmas because of the demand in the markets the fishermen have steadily built up over the years. If they cannot meet the demand, fishermen from other countries will do so. They must be permitted to provide continuity of supply.

I do not know how the Minister of State will solve this problem. Swapping quotas with other countries has been mentioned as well as bringing forward next year's allocation to take advantage of high prices. While a solution must be achieved, the manner in which the fishing industry is organised is wrong. We are careering daily from one crisis to another. Why is a fair share not allocated at the end of the year so that fishermen can make it last the following year? Given the Minister of State's experience and the goodwill of all those involved, a solution surely can be found to rectify these problems and give fishermen hope. If they continue to be treated like this, they will leave the industry. The same happened in farming. Ireland will end up with half a dozen major fishing concerns and between 10,000 and 20,000 farmers in 20 years. Ireland has better fishing grounds than every other member state and that would be a disaster. It would border on criminal if we let the industry go.

The fishing industry is in a serious downward spiral. It is more important in my county than in others because it is a barometer of economic activity, development and well-being. If the fishing industry is doing well, we are all happy, but if it is depressed, we are all depressed. It is more important than ever when one realises that Donegal has already lost 7,000 industrial jobs throughout the county in the last seven or eight years. What did we have to replace these jobs if we could not depend on, develop and gain the full potential of a natural asset such as fishing? Farming has its own difficulties but fishing was there for Donegal. We were near the sea, we had the expertise and the tradition, and we seem to be simply letting it slip through our fingers. I do not say that lightly. I say it today because we do not get very many opportunities of raising these issues in Dáil Éireann.

I support the sentiments expressed in the Dáil last week by Deputy Perry, our party spokesman on the marine, by Deputy Jim O'Keeffe and by Deputy Donovan, standing behind the Minister of State this morning. I support their attitudes to this Bill, which as a Deputy representing the most significant sea fishing area in the country in Donegal, I condemn in the strongest terms.

The Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources, Deputy Noel Dempsey, and the Minister for State, Deputy Gallagher, who was here last week and is here today, are presenting us with a classic pig in a poke. A Bill which they say merely consolidates existing legislation and rectifies deficiencies arising from some Supreme Court cases has been hijacked and turned into a lethal instrument directed at an already beleaguered fishing industry.

We need hardly be surprised at this development. This Government is comprised of Members who have been too long in office and have lost touch with the needs of ordinary people, and of the fishing communities. They have long since ceded their authority to their ever-willing civil servants who are content to rule from afar. The Minister has been flying short-lived kites on a variety of subjects in recent years but this Bill is the proof that he is unfit to hold his particular office. His self-righteousness regarding this Bill, bolstered by his new friends in the shadows, the senior civil servants, is an advertisement for a change in Government.

The Minister of State, Deputy Gallagher, is an esteemed constituency colleague of mine and as a man who worked in the fishing industry for many years, I can scarcely believe he is content to put his name to this Bill which, if enacted, would represent a scandalous attack on his constituents and mine. I do not know what amendments will be put forward but if the Bill passes as now proposed it will have serious implications.

This Bill is founded on principles of coercion, criminalisation and disproportionality. Among other things it is an attack on civil liberties and fair play. It smacks of an Administration which has lost its way and views the fishing industry as an implacable enemy rather than a valuable and vital part of the economies and communities of the coasts.

One might say that in dealing principally with offenders against fisheries laws, this Bill should be of no concern to the law-abiding majority. Why should we be so bothered about law-breakers? We must of course have severe penalties for offenders who by their behaviour threaten our precious fish stocks. However, fishery offences differ vastly in terms of seriousness. By all means, severe penalties must be available for the most severe and particularly repeated offences, but many of the transgressions involved in fisheries cases are technical offences, where a fisherman is outside the framework of legislation by a very small margin. The ever-increasing complexity of the regulatory framework also means the vast majority of fishermen would find it difficult to remain aware and abreast of every detail of the thousands of pages of Irish and EU regulations generated in seeking to deal with the problem of managing fisheries.

I see no evidence whatsoever that this Bill makes any distinction between the seriousness of many of the categories or indeed scale of offences involved. It holds no water to say that these are only maximum penalties and the courts can decide the level of the fines, possibly well within the maximum. In an area so arcane and complex, it behoves us as legislators, with the assistance of our experts in the Department, to devise a comprehensive table of on-the-spot fines outside the criminal system, graded upwards to reach into the criminal system for serious offences only.

It is a very disturbing aspect of this Bill that minor offences will be criminalised. That will have serious implications for anyone caught, because acquiring a criminal record for such a minor infringement will probably interfere with one's civil liberties. If one wants to visit relations in the United States, where many Irish people have sons and daughters, what does one do if one acquires a criminal record? One will probably not be allowed into the United States. There will be very serious implications if every infringement is to be treated as a criminal act. The Minister and his officials must look at this issue and ensure there will be a scale of offences, otherwise every fisherman who infringes the regulations even in the most minor way will be categorised as a criminal.

Instead of addressing the real issues surrounding fisheries issues, this Bill takes a classic law and order, throw-the-book-at-them approach, all brawn and no brains. There is no reflection in the Bill of the concern to keep Irish legislation in line with EU norms and standards, to have a truly level playing field. There is no hint anywhere in this Bill that what we may be instituting here is a set of extreme measures to cover up the fact that the Common Fisheries Policy is deeply and fundamentally flawed and needs not merely patching up but root and branch reform. There is no hint in any of the thinking in this Bill that the Government or the Department is willing in any meaningful sense to highlight that the basis for many of the EU regulations we are proposing to uphold at such cost is unworkable, unfair, counterproductive and widely discredited.

This legislation gives legal immunities to people everywhere and reduces the reasonable right of redress available. I know that in at least one recent case, had this Bill been in force, the immunity from legal action and the very deficient conditions for notifying skippers or owners of matters relating to authorisations would have led to a serious miscarriage of justice. The Minister is aware of this case.

The Bill is very negative. I fully agree with the stand taken by our party spokesperson on the marine that if the Bill goes through, it will be a priority of his to have it repealed or amended in Government. My view reflects those of all the fishermen I am familiar with in my constituency and the views of other organisations from different parts of the country who have been in touch with me, as I am sure they have been with other Members of this House and of the Government, and with backbenchers on the Government side of the House. Listening to those backbenchers who have spoken, I will be surprised if the Bill goes through in its current form. For the sake of what is left of the Irish fishing industry, let us hope it does not.

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