Mr. John Lynch:

I thank Deputy Gallagher for his comments and questions. One of the issues he spoke about was penalty points and I want to elaborate a little on some of the serious concerns we have about the penalty points administrative system. I spoke earlier about the Criminal Justice Act. There is a dual system of sanctions. There is the Criminal Justice Act and the administrative sanctions of penalty points for skippers and vessel owners. Those who receive penalty points have 21 days to appeal. By the time a case comes up in the criminal courts, the appeals system will have been followed through and the penalty points will have been applied. If an owner or skipper goes on to the court under the Criminal Justice Act and is acquitted, and so found innocent and not to have committed any offence, the penalty points can remain on the vessel, on the licence and on the skipper's ticket. They can remain even though the person has been found innocent in a court of law. This is completely wrong, and most people would consider this to be wrong.

Another aspect is the three-year drop-off period for penalty points. If somebody is found to have committed an offence and is sanctioned with penalty points, they are to drop off after three years. We were told at the time this would equate to road traffic legislation, whereby penalty points drop off after three years. However, in fisheries if another offence were to be detected within the three years, the whole clock starts again. Even very minor fishery offences can lead to an accumulation of points if any small offence is detected within the three-year period. This is a serious encumbrance on a vessel owner who may have different skippers over the three-year period. These are the main issues with the penalty points system. For this reason, we suggest the Act needs review and potential amendment.