Dr. Susan Steele:

It is fitting that we are last because the members have learned of the huge opportunity in the Irish marine industry, and with that huge opportunity comes huge responsibility. I thank the Chairman, Deputies and Senators for the opportunity to meet them. We very much welcome and value their interest in our work.

The Sea-Fisheries Protection Authority, SFPA, is the youngest and smallest State agency before the committee today. The 2006 Act established the SFPA with a three-person executive of authority members at its helm, including one chair. Our primary statutory role is as the regulatory agency for Irish sea fishing and seafood production. We are charged with promoting, verifying and, where necessary, enforcing compliance with sea fisheries and seafood safety legislation. We act as the guardians. Our mandate covers all fishing vessels operating within Ireland’s 200 mile limit, more than 2,000 Irish registered fishing vessels wherever they operate, and all seafood produced in Ireland’s 170 seafood processing companies. Under the Common Fisheries Policy we also play a substantial coastal State role for non-Irish registered vessels operating in waters under Irish jurisdiction. Over 80% of the wild fish taken from Irish waters are taken by vessels from other member states. Our Act gives us additional roles in collating sea fishing data, representing the State and providing advice on policy as regards effective control.

We maintain an inspectorate, currently with 58 sea fishery protection officers operating from seven regional port offices 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Our sea fishery role includes the inspection of landings and weighing of fishery products by operators at processing establishments to verify the quantities of each species landed. We work closely with the Irish Naval Service and the Air Corps, which carry out all inspections at sea, as well as a national fishery monitoring centre under service level agreement to us.

In seafood safety our role is to ensure compliance with all relevant legislation, thereby providing robust confidence in Ireland’s reputation worldwide as a source of high-quality fish and fish products. As an official agency of the Food Safety Authority of Ireland, we are responsible for the control of the food safety systems around all seafood from production by fishermen or farmers throughout the production chain as far as but not including retail.

We maintain Ireland’s shellfish classification system which classifies production areas according to water quality in line with European food regulations and has ramifications for how shellfish may be placed on the market. We also validate labelling and traceability systems, including DNA checks on fish species.

We are also responsible for providing health certificates detailing origin and traceability for every consignment of fish and fish products manufactured, processed or packaged in Ireland for export to a growing number of third countries.

Furthermore, we are responsible for providing health certificate detailing origin and traceability for every consignment of fish and fish products manufactured, processed or packaged in Ireland for export to a growing number of Third countries.

Since our establishment, our remit has broadened and our volume of work has grown. On the fishery protection side, for example, we have developed and maintain substantial ICT systems to facilitate compliance of Irish fishermen with their obligations to have functioning vessel monitoring systems and electronic recording systems on board, and to facilitate transmission and receipt of such data across member states. In addition, we provide the necessary regulatory resources to support the protected designation of marine areas according to environmental legislation.

One of our less visible outputs is our advice on policy regarding effective control. While we do not formulate policy, our work helps to ensure that regulations can be applied effectively.

We are mindful of the burden of compliance and endeavour to assist industry where we can whether its with training for use of onboard monitoring systems, or in seeking selected derogations for the EU such as the weighting derogation obtained by us in 2012 that allows weighing to take place after transport, and typically at processing establishments, provided the SFPA is satisfied with the accuracy and integrity of those weighing systems.

We do not have the resources to be present at every landing or every shellfish farm every day of the week. Instead we adopt a risk-based approach, devoting our time to those areas where we assess the highest probability of non-compliance.

When it comes to compliance, there is no doubt committee members have heard calls for a level playing field. We completely agree that compliance expectations on fishermen should not differ regardless of vessel flag, fishing location or landing port. The reality is that Irish fishermen have tighter quotas than many of their EU counterparts. We devote substantial resource in representing Ireland at various EU fora promulgating our concept of a level playing field and one of compliance. An industry built on compliance is the outcome we are working towards in our three-year Government endorsed strategy. Support, advise, validate and enforce are the four pillars that provide a framework for our work to 2017 and our commitment to fair, effective and independent regulation. The low levels of non-compliance that we find across sea-fisheries and seafood production are testament to the committed efforts of the majority of fishermen, fish farmers and fish processors to try to work within the law.

From time to time we have detected non-compliance. Sanctions have a specific punitive role for the wrongdoer and a much wider deterrent role for others. The dissuasiveness of sanctioning systems is linked to their immediacy and proportionality. Would-be non-compliers need to know that non-compliance will result in sufficiently undesirable sanctions, proportionate to the extent of wrongdoing. However, we have a limited regulatory toolbox. In food safety we can issue legal notices with or without the publication of details, issue fixed penalty notices or fines or initiate prosecutions. In our sea fisheries infringements, we prepare case files for assessment by the DPP with a view to indictment and prosecution. The national system for assigning points for serious infringements of the Common Fisheries Policy, CFP, is being reassessed following various legal challenges.

We will use all the tools made available to us appropriately to sanction those who continue to flout the laws that have been designed to fairly distribute a shared natural resource. The low number of instances when points were proposed or when case files were initiated show our view of how infrequently such actions for serious infringements are appropriate and when used have good effect.