Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 9:

In page 14, to delete lines 26 to 29 and substitute the following: “15J.(1) Subject to subsection (2), points assigned by the Authority to a master who is an Irish citizen are suspended when any appeal is pending and shall be deemed fully revoked upon successful outcome of any such proceedings, in respect of the infringement concerned.”.

This amendment concerns the very significant concerns which Irish fishermen have regarding the application of these penalty points to them. It provides that the master will, if he is an Irish citizen, have these points "suspended when any appeal is pending and shall be deemed fully revoked upon [a] successful outcome of any such proceedings, in respect of the infringement concerned." Deputy Mac Lochlainn will be supporting this afterwards also. This is very clear and is a major concern to many fishermen out there. I said in previous discussions that it looks that if the points are applied, and are applied in the wrong, they will remain on the fisherman's licence. I have serious concerns about that and there is no black-and-white clarity here. It is not the case and it should obviously not be the case where a fisherman is found to be innocent in Irish waters but still finds himself locked with penalty points.

I look at the situations that we find ourselves in with Irish fishermen at the present time with the recent ramming incident off Castletownbere by a Spanish trawler fishing inside Irish fishing zones. There is clear footage of that with near loss of life as far as the Irish fishermen were concerned, with little or no laws there to protect the Irish fishermen. I still have to find out, and perhaps the Minister might confirm, if penalty points were applied to that Spanish trawler in its own country, or if penalty points are already in place there. What kind of laws are there to protect Irish fishermen because it looks to me that if we agree to this today, it will be another stick to beat the fishermen with?

Fishermen have been beaten around the bush quite often over the past number of years in any event. That incident shocked many fishermen because there was a trawler out there begging for mercy and there was a Spanish trawler perhaps three times the size of it circling this vessel for several hours with no one able to go to the aid of the Irish fishing trawler. We cannot find ourselves in that situation because if we are bringing penalty points in here to inflict on our Irish fishermen, surely to God there is protection out there for the Irish fleet when it is out on the seas. There is growing anger in Irish fisheries at the moment and it is hard to blame the fishermen because we are quite happy to be bringing these provisions in here this evening and going ahead. No matter what amendment we put in today, the Minister will oppose it by the sound of things and he is quite happy to do that no matter how fair and reasonable some of these amendments are. At the end of the day, however, if a foreign vessel comes into our waters and does what it damn well likes, there seems to be no protection for the Irish fishermen. Until we get clarity that this situation will and is being addressed, that will be the way our fishermen will feel they are being treated.