Mr. Patrick Murphy:

They go on the data that are presented to them and what they have. I am the chairperson of the focus group for north-west waters. We had meetings with the EFCA; we did not have meetings with the SFPA. EFCA has a methodology it uses to evaluate whether someone is high risk or not. We have a countdown clock for multiple species on a monthly basis that the SFPA asks for every night of the week. A fisher is duty-bound to fill in a logbook. Say a boat is fishing for hake and it has 20 tonnes for the month. In the first two weeks, it has been lucky and caught 15 tonnes of hake. Mathematically, it is in danger of catching another 15 tonnes in the last two weeks. Automatically, it becomes high risk. That is what we were told. That is passed on to the EFCA and it can come on board the vessel. Those data are not available to the SFPA on the foreign boats visiting our fleets because that has to come from their patrol authorities. However, they do not operate on the monthly schedule we operate. I see that as there being no level playing pitch.

As Mr. Lynch said, we have no problem with inspectors coming on board our vessels. It is regular. Either the Chair or one of his colleagues asked a question around how often. Under the legislation in Europe, 5% of all activities are to be monitored in the different sectors. We see some boats getting a lot more attention than others. Maybe they are high risk. What we do not know is, if a boat is deemed to be high risk, when does it come out of that category? How many inspections are there before it gets the all-clear and is removed from the list of those in danger of creating an offence?

Members asked how they could help us. We want to address the nitty-gritty of it, as our colleagues have said. We suggested loads of amendments to the legislation, especially on penalty points.

I am going to be brief on this one. If one commits murder in Ireland or any other crime and gets a jail sentence, one is deemed to have expunged one's record once after going to jail and serving one's sentence. If a fisher reaches the magic number of 90 penalty points, he or she can no longer call himself or herself a skipper. The fisher loses all entitlements. Everything the fisher has trained for is taken away and there is no opportunity, even if he or she goes back to every college in the land, to get his or her tickets back. That is the anomaly we want addressed-----