Mr. Brendan Gleeson:

The first thing is that this has been in gestation for a while. It is something that I declared in my statement of internal financial control and the Appropriation Accounts for 2019. The second thing is that we have taken a number of steps in recent years to increase the resources available to the SFPA and the Deputy mentioned that. The SFPA has engaged the PwC to carry out a capability review and is trying to implement the relevant recommendations at the moment. A number of steps have been taken to improve IT systems in the SFPA. So all of these things are happening to improve our control systems.

The administrative inquiry hit the newspapers today. The standard requirement under the relevant regulation is that fish are weighed at the point of landing on the pier. Ireland has been operating on the basis of a derogation. We had a Commission audit followed by an administrative inquiry which indicated that, in some instances, that they were not happy to rely on the efficacy of the controls relating to the weighing of pelagic fish. It is on that basis that the Commission's decision has emerged. The decision removes the derogation. That is what the effect of the control plan is. There is a process under way and the SFPA and the Department are still engaged with the Commission on that. I do not want to say too much more about that because I do not think it would be helpful to the process. I am sure we will have long and detailed conversations about that matter.