Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for his contribution, his ongoing representations to me on behalf of fishers and the fishing community in County Cork and his work on their behalf. As regards weighing and all those operational matters, legally I am precluded from getting into the middle of that. Legally, that is the job of the committee, rather than my job as Minister. The SFPA reports on those matters to, and engages on matters pertinent to it, with the appropriate committees of the Houses of the Oireachtas, not with the Minister. The law prevents me being involved in those matters and assigns the responsibility for engaging on them to the committee. I know the committee met the SFPA earlier this week to discuss these matters in detail. Were I to cross over into operational matters, I would be in breach of the Act. The job of the SFPA is to apply EU regulations as a competent authority. In terms of reporting, engaging and accountability, that is to Oireachtas committees. Policy matters and resourcing the SFPA are matters for me, as Minister. Bringing forward legislation, as I am doing today, and all matters from a policy point of view are my responsibility as Minister, as is engaging at Commission level and representing Ireland as a member state.

As regards restructuring of the SFPA, I referred earlier to the PwC report, which went into great detail in terms of a review of the organisation and setting out many actions to be carried out as part of that. The advisory committee is in place to facilitate that as well. That work is ongoing and it is important that we support and resource it. I will ensure that I do so and keep up to speed with how that is evolving in terms of resourcing it.