Mr. Ken Fleming:

I will have to be honest. I did say back in 2009 when we introduced the permit scheme in Scotland that bad and all as it was I used to criticise Ireland on the basis that at least something happens in the UK. Since Theresa May funded the awareness on trafficking there has been a reconstruction of the attitude of the police in England. I have given a few talks in every major county in England because there are 42 different police forces there. I have met most of the important ones. There is no sense in meeting a midland police force so we have stayed on the coast. They have employed a guy by the name of David Enright who is a senior detective. He is heading the thing up. They mean to do the business, whereas over here we get together in these groups, these Santa Marta groups, and it is really grandeur and everybody is tapping everybody on the back. The Archbishop of Dublin is there. Everybody is there. The PSNI is there. The fisheries authorities are there. Revenue is there. Everybody is there. It is one big talking shop because nothing happens when we go out the door then and blow the whistle, as we did when we compiled three concise fundamental reports, naming the boat owners, photographing the victims, photographing the owners, and photographing the documentary evidence to say they were not paid.

We submitted that to NERA, the Garda Síochána and the Marine Survey Office, MSO. A man with me here attended the meeting of the MSO when the head of the MSO admitted that he had put my report in the bin. The head of NERA described my reports as lively. As I said to him last Monday week, it is an awful pity that NERA is not as lively as my reports because we would not have these problems. That is the reality. We are treated as a pain in the arse and nothing is going to be done about it. There is a view that no trade union movement or anyone like it will tell them how do to the work. That is not what we are trying to do. I was asked one day what were my aspirations before I retired. I said that these people are in hell and at the end of the day they will remain in hell, but at least if we get them paid for it, we will have achieved something. The boat owners I have met will never change and treat these people in a decent manner. We might be able to force them to pay them.