Mr. Andrew Kinneen:

Let me respond very directly to what the Deputy is saying about what is an apparent high level of transparency on the part of the industry. Unfortunately, the Commission is finding it very hard to get past the record to the effect that there has been a criminal conviction against an individual processor for tampering with weighing equipment — weighing equipment that was inspected and approved by both the NSAI and SFPA in good faith. One aspect of the matter is we need to have more robust ways of ensuring weighing equipment is protected.

We have made a considerable effort to ensure we would learn what is state of the art and the vulnerabilities of state-of-the-art equipment. While Deputy Mac Lochlainn is correct that there is better equipment available now that has electronic features that produce a data log after the event that lets us know if any tampering of the weighing has taken place, we have learned in the journey we have taken to assess this modern equipment that state-of-the-art equipment, with all these electronic features, is still vulnerable to physical tampering. The accurate weighing of fish can be affected by techniques such as interference with the speed of the belt feeding in the fish or interference in respect of the way the machinery is set up. We have even learned that in the event that systems are being used that might be dewatering fish using fans, care has to be taken that this, in itself, does not have a distorting effect on the load cells.

We agree entirely with the Deputy in that we are looking for a transparent system in which we can have confidence. There are challenges. There are opportunities presented by more modern equipment but they certainly do not close off all the issues we are facing or might be dealing with. It is a subset of the industry that is determined to circumvent the regulations.