Mr. Andrew Kinneen:

I will, Chairman. Deputy Michael Collins has offered us a lot of questions there and we have taken note of them. I repeat the invitation to him and to other members of the committee. The committee will be aware that section 68 of the Sea-Fisheries and Maritime Jurisdiction Act 2006 is explicit with regard to the duty the authority has to account for the performance of our functions to the committee. We are happy to engage with it at any time and any level to hear members' concerns or what they might wish to offer us on how we might do our job better. To reiterate that, there is a statutory basis for our relationship. We like to show the committee every respect in terms of our attendance here and we view it as a privilege to have an opportunity to put our position on different matters on the record. We are very happy to engage, just to confirm what Dr. Steele has been saying to the committee on that point.

There are a lot of issues of concern to the industry at the moment, many of which we are aware of through bilateral meetings with industry representatives. Deputy Michael Collins has mentioned the public and peaceful protest conducted by the industry to get public recognition for the many pressures it has. Some of them are wider than our remit but very much part of that has been the industry's concerns coming out of the issues with the control plan, the absence of a control plan currently and having that in place. We are doing everything we can in terms of having a credible - and it is very important it is credible - control plan to present to the Commission as quickly as possible. We have now established a channel for this work, whereby we can work bilaterally with the Commission on the development and improvement of the control plan without adversely affecting the other bilateral discussions taking place between Ireland and the Commission with regard to the administrative inquiry and the potential for the clawback of alleged under-declared landings and so on.

For the Deputy's information, it is not that we have endorsed the Commission's findings wholesale. We have taken issue with some of its conclusions and methodologies that apply to doing calculations of the quantity of under-declared fish. We have offered advice to our parent Department, and by that route to the Commission, on where we perceive there may be shortcomings in the reliance of the Commission on dipping data to extrapolate our potential alleged under-declaration of our landings. There have been certain issues that are a matter of fact. We have spoken to the committee about some of these in the past. These include the proven case of weighing systems being interfered with and that has been tested in a court of law and is a fact. Along with other matters, which are a matter of record, as well, we have, as we are required to do under Community law, co-operated with the Commission in providing it with the data it requested on the details of pelagic landings into Ireland over a six-year time period. We had no discretion in that matter. We felt it was in Ireland's interests overall to engage with Commission and provide that data, which is a matter of record anyway, on the landings and on the ancillary information our front-line officers would have gathered when attending those landings. It is not as if we put a rubber stamp on the Commission's view of Ireland or what its audits are. It is much more nuanced than that. We have always tried to ensure there is accurate information in place.

I support Dr. Steele's view that we are in a position where we are following. For the most part the correspondence from the Commission has been from the Commissioner to the Minister. We have not been at liberty to divulge that while matters are in process, particularly the discussions on estimated alleged under-declared fish. What we have done is offer every assistance both directly to the Commission and to our Minister to ensure they have the best technical information we can provide as to the reliability or otherwise of certain methodologies. We hope we have been honest brokers in this. We are not at liberty to divulge this into the public arena at this stage but we have offered opinion where we felt something needed to be corrected or where there needed to be counterbalancing information. We have done everything we can to make sure that has been the case. As I said, we have established a direct route with a Commission official and officials to work on the development of Ireland's control plan. There have discussions already with that individual and they have covered a wide range of issues that are of concern to the Commission at this stage and that would have to be attended to in our control plan, as we submit that to the Commission, so that it would be credible and be deemed worthy of consideration and approval. There are a wide range of issues there, such as the Commission wanting us - which was not entirely the case with the earlier control plan - to adopt a risk-management approach to how we resource and systemise our control in the major ports and so on.

I do not know if we are in a position to comment to the Deputy on the vacancy in the Commission except I can confirm that up to a certain point, when dealing with the audit and the administrative inquiry we were dealing with a particular Commission official. That official's tenure at the Commission came to an end. I cannot give the Deputy dates; I am not privy to the internal workings of the Commission. That individual's contract came to an end with the Commission and they have now been replaced with another individual and we are liaising directly with them to ensure we are dealing with matters as they are arising. I welcome and hear the Deputy's comment on rebuilding relationships. Part of that rebuilding is for us to offer what we sincerely believe to be true. In our meetings with the industry, its representatives have tried to be constructive and creative regarding solutions that might address the situation Ireland finds itself in with regard to the absence of a control plan. We have listened carefully to what they have been saying to us but we are somewhat at a loss in that there are no provisions in the Community legislation that we are aware of that provide for transitional arrangements, a quasi-control plan or whatever it might be.

It is an on-off switch in terms of the legislation that is there. There is either a control plan with sampling plans inside it that provides for the weighing of fish after transport or there is not. If there is no control plan in place, we will go back to the default position where all fish must be weighed before transport. We have tried to mitigate the effect that has had on the industry. We are very conscious of it thanks to the feedback we received during consultation and meetings we had with those working in the industry.

The effect on the industry is not universal. We are not saying there is no effect but it differs in different scenarios. For example, for landings into our major fishery harbours such as Castletownbere, Dingle, Rossaveal, Killybegs, Dunmore East and Howth, much of the weighing of fish is taking place as it did heretofore under the control plan insomuch that we have defined a footprint area of the harbour in which fish can be weighed. To give an example of what the practice might be, in Castletownbere much of the fish is being weighed in the weighing systems of the co-operative, which are hygienic, covered, proper and, in every way what people would desire to manage and handle fish of this quality.

As you move away from the major harbours, there is a greater impact on smaller operators. We concede that and have done a lot of work with these groups to see how we might help them. As part of that work, we looked at what equipment operators are using to weigh fish and engaged the expertise of the National Standards Authority of Ireland, NSAI, to see how we might help them to get type-approved systems in place and so on. I emphasise to the Deputy that there is an effect on the practices of the industry. We have not come to the committee to claim that the de-icing and re-icing of fish is good for quality fish. We were before the committee previously and we dealt with that matter then too. We are trying to help the industry to deal with what has to be managed at the moment.

We would not like to leave the committee with the impression that members of the SFPA are attending every landing and standing over people to make them tip out their fish and so on. That is not the way we do business. In fact, we try to adopt a supportive and de-escalated approach, given the suddenness of these arrangements having to be put in place on foot of the Commission's decision to rescind Ireland's control plan. I will leave it there. I am sure we will come back to these matters as we speak to the committee.