Mr. Andrew Kinneen:

I might sweep up a couple of other aspects and perhaps Mr. O'Mahony will support me on this one.

As I stated earlier, we have an obligation for the behaviour of all those fishing inside the 200 mile limit of the State. We have a responsibility to see that they are compliant with the rules of the Common Fisheries Policy. That gives us jurisdiction in terms of exercising control or regulation of those fishing vessels and that is achieved through co-operation with the Naval Service, the Air Corps and work we do in the ports, and also through the evaluation of fisheries data streams that come to us. We are now getting electronic logbook data streams, vessel position data streams and shared intelligence from other member states on aspects of fishing, etc. There is also a Community-wide system in place for the reporting of infringements under IUU regulation, which is another area we should not go into.

A member of the committee asked how will we be sure that other member states will apply the points that should be applied, and it is a good question. First, when we detect an infringement by a fishing vessel under the flag of another member state and it satisfies the criteria for a serious infringement, we will formally inform that member state. In other words, there will be a written record of that. The Commission is anxious that there would be a level of transparency to see that the member states comply with the requirements of this and in this regard, the European Fisheries Control Agency has a central role. One of its statutory mandates is to ensure a level playing field in fisheries in Europe. We participate in the administrative work of that agency and it would be one of the questions on which we will ensure there is a high level of transparency because we are on a hiding to nothing if we do not have that as such.