Mr. Micheál O'Mahony:

I am conscious of the answers the Deputy has already received and I thank him for the opportunity to respond. I recognise a great deal of what he has put on the table as thought processes I would have had 13 years ago when I commenced working with SFPA. This is not rocket science; it is weighing dead fish. Surely, that should be easy to do and easy enough to control but the reality is that it is not. That is not stretching the reality; it is a factual statement based upon a great deal of experience.

The Deputy mentioned CCTV and the potential for unannounced inspections by the SFPA or the NSAI. Each of those helps and each mitigates the risk but none, on its own or as part of an overall matrix, will sufficiently deter a concerted action by somebody who gets out of the bed in morning with the sole intent of landing undeclared fish. That is the reality. There is an element of trust involved and an element of us trying to find a balance of control versus commercial impediment. I know the Deputy will respond about the commercial impact of these controls, but we are trying to find a balance.

The Deputy mentioned CCTV. The CCTV views the read-out on the scale. The only thing - it is a useful thing, but let us be clear it is a limited thing - that can do is show that that read-out is created in zero. It most certainly does not give us the confidence that that read-out is correct. It gives us the confidence that the scales is turned on and clocking something of greater than zero. I am not belittling that; I am just delimiting it to what it is. It is that and no more. Deputy Mac Lochlainn mentioned the potential for unannounced inspections. We can do unannounced inspections but the reality is there is only one gateway into each of these plants and things can change. We have experiences of things being visibly changed rapidly as we walked into plants. There are controls in place. As I said, I would previously have held the view expressed by the Deputy that the totality of these add up to something that should be enough to assuage anyone's concerns. The reality is they do not. When the Commission digs it finds the potential for tampering is real. The instruments can be tampered with. Despite best attempts, there is more to do here yet.