Mr. John Lynch:

I thank Deputy Whitmore for her questions. She asked about infringements and the sanctions that pertain to them. The infringements are what they are as they are described in an Act but there are different levels of infringement. To go back to road traffic legislation, being 2 km over the speed limit is a completely different issue to being 22 km over it. We have three areas of possible infringement on a vessel. These pertain to the vessel, the catch and the gear. An enormously complex set of regulations in the European Union governs this and there are many layers to it.

It is very difficult to be 100% correct at all times. There may be a small issue like a mesh size being a couple of millimetres too small, but that carries the same potential sanction as it being 20 mm too small, as I explained a minute ago. An administrative system should take this into account and distinguish between a first offence and multiple, continuous offences. It has to be accepted things can go wrong and things can happen from time to time. The system should be balanced and have sanctions relative to the offences that have been committed. The offences described by Deputy Whitmore would all constitute serious offences no matter what level of the offence had been committed. A small offence is also a serious offence with fisheries. In fact, nearly all offences in fisheries are considered serious offences and they are all managed in the same manner. In a review we could take into account the seriousness of the offence and have a staged process for sanctions, rather than the dual system we have, which we deem to be completely inappropriate. To be honest, it is not actually effective.