Mr. Michael O'Brien:

Some fishers have obtained Irish citizenship. This requires five years continuous documented employment but also being continuously in the State for the preceding full year. This unfortunately knocks some of them out because if they make a short visit to Egypt, or wherever, that disqualifies them. It is more costly also than obtaining a stamp 4 but certainly, it is an option that is recommended to them if they can obtain it. It is not as available to them as this documentation scheme potentially can be.

I will comment on the human trafficking side of things so that people are aware. We have had human trafficking legislation in Ireland since 2008 and we only arrived at our first ever conviction a few months ago involving two Nigerian sex workers who were brought over here. That is the reason that the United States State Department has downgraded Ireland again to a tier 2 watch-list country, alongside Romania, Azerbaijan and Belarus, as the worst performers in Europe in combating human trafficking.

Alongside the symptoms of human trafficking that Mr. Kelly described, there is also being coerced into an illegal act. For example, if one is told by a vessel owner to hide an over-quota catch from the authorities where the fishing of a quota species is involved, all of the migrants who have come to us have testified to us about that. They may also have been told to hide from the authorities, be that the Naval Service or the WRC. That is also an illegal act which they may have been coerced into doing.

There is also fear of denunciation and trafficking by deception. Most people who have been admitted into the referral mechanism were brought in legally on the strength of the contract that there were promised. They then experienced something that was severely at odds to this. That is how the conviction was arrived at for the two Nigerian sex workers who were promised something entirely different but when they came to Ireland they were treated as sex slaves.

The Department of Justice in its response to the 2021 Trafficking in Persons Report, TIP, report in July uniquely contested that fishing is a site of exploitation and trafficking. It did not contest any of the other sectors that are seen as vulnerable? Why was that? The reason, I believe, is because the perpetrators are Irish and the people who were convicted in the Nigerian sex workers case were Nigerian. The perpetrators in this sector, however, are Irish, which is why we have not had a conviction as yet.

I am going to a meeting in 25 minutes' time of a number of NGOs and the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission. There are going to be reforms to the national referral mechanism, which are welcome in order that we are not dependent solely on the Garda to admit people back into the scheme.