Martin Browne (Tipperary, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I concur with Deputy Collins. This is one of the fundamental issues we have with the Bill. We are introducing this amendment because allowing future livelihoods to depend on the loose balance of probabilities is plain wrong. Sinn Féin's and Deputy Collins's amendment tries to resolve that. How many people working in the fisheries industry, or indeed in any industry or even as an individual in the State, has the Minister met who believe they are being treated right, fairly and justly by having a conviction which could seriously impact their livelihood based on a balance of probabilities? We have been through this before at committee meetings and in the Dáil, and that is why we seek to rectify it by replacing the words "on the balance of probabilities" with the words "beyond a reasonable doubt".

Many members have made their feelings known on this, and those in the industry have made their feelings known to the Minister and his officials. For some reason, the Minister has tabled amendments to the Bill that deal with grammatical errors yet he has not addressed the fundamental problem that has been brought to his attention continuously. Will he tell the committee whether he thinks the people fishing in all kinds of weather are not to be believed or trusted? Setting the bar so low gives the impression that he does not trust fishers enough to warrant the threshold of "beyond a reasonable doubt". There is absolutely no way that I, my Sinn Féin colleagues or anybody else in the Opposition will support the wording we have before us. It is outrageous to think that our fishing industry is being treated in this way. Sinn Féin has said from the start that we would fight this every step of the way and we will hold true to our word. We cannot support this.