Mr. Micheál O'Mahony:

I thank Dr. Steele and Deputy Mac Lochlainn. I will start somewhat narrowly on the very nub of the Deputy's question, then get a little broader and then circle back again. I will start by agreeing with him on the generality of the point he makes. We will not sit here and say the weighing of fish at landing, or SFPA controls of the weighing of fish at landing, are a step towards improving fish quality. That is simply not the case, to get that out straight away. The words "quality" and "safety" are put about. The Deputy spoke about the fisheries control regulation and quoted from Article 74 of the Council regulation and Article 98 of the implementing regulation. Fisheries control is what the SFPA does. Fish weighing, fish quality maintenance and fish safety maintenance are what the industry does. Our role is the official control.

Without being too philosophical about it, "quality" is one of those terms that means different things to different people but, ultimately, it is the sum of the good points about food and what we want in our food. That is what food quality is. It is what people are willing to pay for and what people want. One aspect of quality is freshness. It is one of the aspects people want. People want flavour, safety, ecological credentials and sustainability credentials. There are a lot of aspects of quality, but I think the focus here is on the freshness of fish. Quality is perhaps a continuum, with good, bad and middling. Safety is more of an absolute concept. Something is either safe or not safe. It cannot be a little safe, just as you cannot be a little pregnant. That is the philosophical point.

To get to the more direct point, the Deputy mentioned the control regulation.

It deals with those rare events that the SFPA is physically present to inspect. There is a much broader issue of having to weigh fish on the pier regardless of whether the SFPA is present. What fishermen do when we are present should be no different from what they do when we are not. Our presence should not meaningfully alter what is happening to those fish. The same thing should be happening to them regardless of whether we are present. As such, I do not accept the construct based on those control regulation articles that there is some kind of conflict or undoability. All of our controls do not have a positive impact on quality and everybody should be trying to work to minimise the impact of that. I will cite the example of food coming into Dublin Port today from third countries. Some of those shipments are opened and inspected. No one is saying that that is good for quality, yet it is a necessary part of the regime. The same applies to the fishery management system. Society has said that it wants to ensure that the quantity of fish that is landed is checked, so a requirement to have the fish weighed is put in place. No one is saying that is good for quality, but it is necessary from a fishery management perspective. As such, we do not accept the Deputy's construct of the control regulation somehow being in conflict with our role in quality and food safety.

Quality deteriorates from the point the fish is killed. From the point it dies, its immune system stops working and the quality of the fish deteriorates because the environment around it attacks it. Part of the skill, lore and craft of being a fisherman is to minimise that and make every step a minimising step. It is the same with weighing. Fishermen have to do many things with a fish - get it from the sea to the coast, from the landing point onto the truck and from the truck to the consumer. In all of those steps, they have to have an eye towards quality and safety, and every step within that should be a minimising step.

When we get there, we observe what the fishermen are doing. That is if we get there. We inspect approximately 20% of landings, depending on risk. There is a one in five chance of being inspected. When we get there, fishermen should not be doing anything differently. They should be weighing the fish regardless of whether we are there. The view that this has somehow changed with the revocation of the control plan is very difficult to accept; I do not accept it. In many ways, it would have been a greater intervention for us to arrive in a control plan era than in a non-control plan era. I can expand on that further if the Deputy wishes.

Ultimately, ensuring fish quality is the role of the fisherman. It is entirely possible to weigh fish with appropriate quality maintenance at landing. It is challenging - I am not saying it is easy or optimum, but it is possible. Our role would be to make the minimum possible intervention to comply with the Articles 74 and 98 requirements, which the Deputy read out verbatim, in order to minimise, insofar as is possible, any deleterious impact on the quality of the fish.

I will probably draw a breath at this point. I do not know whether the Deputy wishes to respond to any of the points I have made.