Mr. C.J. Gaffney:

Everyone is shocked. No one has ever questioned that we are wrong or anything like that, or look for the paperwork. Everyone is visibly shocked and usually the response right away is "That is not right, we will have to do something about it", but then it just seems to fade away.

When I think of some of the things said and done by senior civil servants, we were not treated right at all. We once met two civil servants from the Department of fisheries with the Minister for Foreign Affairs. He said he was from the Department of Foreign Affairs and that the situation had gone on long enough. He said he would call for a meeting of the Departments of Foreign Affairs, Transport and fisheries, sit everyone down the following week and go through the situation and find a solution. Those civil servants said we had our meeting and that they would not be attending any more meetings. The Minister told them they could not leave and instructed them to stay. They walked out and that was the end of it.

The Minister for Transport then organised a meeting in the Marine Survey Office with the two senior surveyors. The Minister for Foreign Affairs attended. The surveyors said they were going to get on board. They said the situation was madness and the case had to go to Europe. They said they would get on board. At that time, I had a meeting with the director of fisheries. The civil servants said they would visit the vessel the following week, do a full report and get behind us. We were told things would be ready for us to go to Brussels. I said that was grand and asked the if they would attend the meeting in Brussels. They said no because it was a matter for fisheries and they were with the Department of Transport but that if we ever got a meeting with representatives of the Department of Transport, they would, of course, come to Brussels with us. They never did the survey or produced any of the paperwork. When I did get a meeting with representatives of the Department of Transport, they refused to go. They are now coming back and saying they were paramount and proactive in all of this. The vessel was tested in May 2009. The Marine Survey Office eventually wrote a letter to the Committee on Safe Seas in Brussels, stating that we in Ireland have a problem. However, it provided no evidence. It was 2013 that they did that and the problem with the vessel dated from 2009.

Another two beam trawlers were lost in Holland. It did an interim report, went straight to the European Union and said there was a problem with the beam trawlers of less than 24 m. We got word of that and went to the Marine Survey Office and the Department of Transport to try to get involved with that case and send all the information. That took a long time. Eventually, Deputy Whitmore submitted a parliamentary question asking the Department to get involved. It was only then a letter was written stating the Department was there and could help. However, it never said anything about the Mary Kate. It never sent any evidence or anything like that. The time it said it would help was a month before it was published so nothing was ever going to happen.