Dáil debates

Thursday, 13 April 2017

Inland Fisheries (Amendment) Bill 2017: Second Stage

 

2:40 pm

Photo of Timmy DooleyTimmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to the debate on this legislation. Fianna Fáil will be supporting this Bill. It is a critical and urgent amendment to confer explicit powers on Inland Fisheries Ireland to bring and prosecute summary proceedings for inland fisheries offences. As the Minister of State has indicated, the IFI is the main body with responsibility for protecting Ireland’s inland waterways - and up to 12 nautical miles off the coastline - and the fish that inhabit these areas from illegal poaching, overfishing and other illegal activities. The Minister of State is correct when he says that poaching is not a victimless crime. In some parts of the country it was almost a badge of honour for people to engage in the illicit poaching of fish. It has a detrimental impact on fish stocks. It also has a very negative impact on the fishing experience of many people who visit different parts of Ireland to pursue their leisure, and who return fish to their natural environment. The fishing sector is, in many cases, the only attraction for tourism into vast tracts of our State. I believe it is a sector that has been under-supported by successive Governments, as is evident from the length of time it has taken to bring such a Bill to the House. There are many locations dotted throughout the country that with a little bit of investment and support from the State - in conjunction with other State entities, be they local authorities or other significant landholders - could be made into very attractive locations from a fishing point of view.

3 o’clock

Fianna Fáil has put on record its position on developing the fishing sector. Our fishing policy paper highlights the need to appoint a Minister with full responsibility for fisheries and to place all responsibility for fisheries, including inland fisheries and marine leisure, in a single Department. This would ensure a uniformity of approach with a view to developing the sector more fully and proactively into the future. It would then have the capacity to develop as a business that could be marketed abroad in addition to meeting domestic demand. It could act as a very significant tourism attractor without a need for massive investment.

Our policy paper also highlights the necessity to prioritise fisheries and marine resources, such as harvesting high quality indigenous marine species, seafood processing, bio-marine ingredients, seaweed production and marine renewables, as key contributors to national economic recovery, job creation and balanced regional growth. Also included in the policy paper is the need to promote sustainable fishing and aquaculture practices to achieve long-term security of fish stocks and to secure the incomes of fishermen and related sectors. It is well accepted that there is a need for sustainability. The policies Fianna Fáil would bring forward would certainly ensure that is the case.

Those who are involved in leisure pursuits around fishing recognise the importance of ensuring that sustainable practices are in place. They want to see changes to the law enabling Inland Fisheries Ireland, IFI to prosecute those who would undermine and impact negatively on the area for domestic users and tourists alike. In east Clare, where there are significant resources by way of lakes and fish stocks, local angling groups have struggled to maintain fish stocks over time because of pollution in the first instance and, in more recent years, because of the level of poaching. They tell me more bailiffs are needed. It is one thing having the legislative capacity to make a prosecution, but it is also vitally important that there is an adequate level of detection, which requires people working on behalf of the State.

There is also a necessity to look at our entire asset base in the development of the sector. For example, the Tulla and district anglers are having difficulty accessing a lake they fish regularly. They are having a battle with Coillte, which will not give them access although it allows other clubs and entities onto its lands. It is unsightly and unnecessary. We need to instil a recognition of the importance of our inland fisheries and their associated leisure and tourism pursuits in all our State agencies. There is a very significant tourism benefit to the area. If we allow the culture to deteriorate over the years, we will no longer have the ghillies and other people who provide the basis for the tourism sector. We do not want to see the practice dying out or being discouraged.

Those who work in restorative justice programmes helping to rehabilitate young people who, for one reason or another, have lost their way and find themselves before the courts, have identified fishing as a practice which has helped young offenders to get back on the straight and narrow. It is a pursuit in which they have found great capacity to interact again and pursue a meaningful existence. There are so many benefits to inland fishing and they are not harnessed enough by the State.

I welcome the Bill and recognise its importance. While it does not go as far as Fianna Fáil would like in terms of developing a policy, it begins to ensure that we can at least deal with overfishing and other activities that would damage stocks. It allows the IFI to pursue wrongdoers through the courts. While we support the Bill, we ask the Minister to take a more holistic approach to the sector and that he looks to develop policies from which legislative proposals would flow. Those policies should aim not just to protect what we have but to enhance and grow the sector across the entire space. All State entities should work together in a cohesive way to this end. The true potential of this sector has gone almost unrecognised.

I propose to share the remainder of my time with my party colleagues.

Comments

No comments

Log in or join to post a public comment.