Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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Before we begin, I have a note about privilege. Witnesses giving evidence from within the parliamentary precincts are protected by absolute privilege in respect of the evidence they give to the committee. This means a witness has a full defence in any defamation action for anything said at a committee meeting. However, witnesses are expected not to abuse this privilege and may be directed to cease giving evidence on an issue at the Chair's direction. Witnesses should follow the direction of the Chair in this regard. They are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that, as is reasonable, no adverse commentary should be made against an identifiable third person or entity. Witnesses who are to give evidence from a location outside the parliamentary precincts are asked to note that they may not benefit from the same level of immunity from legal proceedings as a witness giving evidence from within the parliamentary precincts and may consider it appropriate to take legal advice on this matter. Privilege against defamation does not apply to publication by witnesses outside of the proceedings held by the committee of any matters arising from the proceedings.

I advise members of the constitutional requirement that they must be physically present within the confines of the Leinster House complex in order to participate in public meetings. I will not permit a member to participate where they are not adhering to this constitutional requirement. Therefore, a member who attempts to participate from outside the precinct will be asked to leave the meeting. In this regard, I ask any member participating via Microsoft Teams that, prior to making their contribution to the meeting, they confirm they are on the grounds of the Leinster House campus. Members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable, or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of the person or entity. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative that they comply with any such direction.

The agenda for the first session of today's meeting is the review of the Sea Fisheries and Maritime Jurisdiction Act 2006, as agreed previously by the committee. The committee will hear from a number of officials from the Seafood Ireland Alliance and the Irish Seafood & Fishing Alliance. From the former organisation we have Mr. John Lynch, Mr. Dominic Rihan, Mr. Patrick Murphy, who I believe is joining us remotely, and Mr. Brendan Byrne. From the latter organisation we have Mr. Cormac Burke.

The witnesses' opening statements have circulated to members, so I propose to give two minutes to each of the witnesses to give a brief summary of their statements. We will then go to questions from members, with ten-minute slots at the outset. I remind members that that ten minutes has to include both questions and responses, so if they wish to have a response to the points they raise, they should allow sufficient time for the witnesses to answer. When asking questions, members should also direct them to the witness or witnesses they would like to respond.

I invite Mr. Lynch to give his two-minute summary.

Mr. John Lynch:

I thank the committee for the invitation to speak about the Sea-Fisheries and Maritime Jurisdiction Act 2006. I will speak to a couple of items that were in the opening statement. First, we do not disagree; we would promote that we have a robust and effective system of control for fisheries in the Irish jurisdiction but at the same time, we think this system should be fair. The current system whereby offences are dealt with under the Criminal Justice Acts is not working. It is not working for the State, it is not working for fishermen and it is certainly not working for fisheries. It is too cumbersome, it takes too long and it has proven to be ineffective and enormously costly for the State and those who are prosecuted. Even for fishermen who have been acquitted, it still costs a lot of money. It still incurs enormous cost for that individual, which is we think is unnecessary. A system of administrative sanctions would work far better - certainly in initial cases. The administrative sanction we do have involves penalty points. That is fine but it is not harmonised with the rest of Europe. We do not have a harmonised system of penalty points across Europe.

Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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I invite Mr. Rihan to make his opening statement.

Mr. Dominic Rihan:

I will build on some of Mr. Lynch's comments. It is worth saying that our organisations have tried to engage with the Sea-Fisheries Protection Authority, SFPA, in the past 12 months. We have had some constructive dialogue with it and it is really important that we build on that working relationship with it for both the regulator and the regulated. I will touch on a few issues in terms of a review of the Bill. The first is the issue of accountability. When we meet the Minister, the Department or the SFPA, we are consistently told that there are certain issues we cannot discuss because they are operational. We do not know what operational is. We have never seen a definition of it but it seems to be used as a catch all for every issue relating to control and we never get the discussion we seek to understand and to be able to respond and look at solutions and how to make things better. The accountability of the SFPA needs to be looked in respect of the Bill.

Another issue is the consultative committee that was set up as part of the Bill. The committee is a very good structure. It needs to have that oversight but consistently, the membership of the committee has said it is a conduit for information but nothing more. Again, we do not really get the detailed discussion of the issues we wish to have and again and the argument that something is operational is used consistently as a reason not to discuss things. The other issue is the formation of that committee. There are supposed to be 14 members. Currently there are 12. Two members of the Killybegs Fishermens Organisation, KFO, who were on that committee have retired. We have sought to have me put back on that committee as a representative of the KFO for nearly 12 months but as that still has not happened, we need a system regarding how members come and go from that committee and, again, there does not seem to be a lot of transparency about that.

Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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I invite Mr. Byrne to make his opening statement.

Mr. Brendan Byrne:

I welcome the committee's interest in this Act because it is critical to the functioning of the entire industry. The entire industry depends on how this Act is implemented and applied across the board. The first thing the committee needs to look at is the Act itself. It was drafted at a time when Ireland focused on self-regulation with no oversight. We had similar Acts such as the Building Control Act and the Central Bank and Financial Services Authority of Ireland Act and we all know how they worked out in the end. This Act needs to be looked at in the round as regards the type of legislation Ireland was drafting at the time. There have been numerous reports into the SFPA from the Wolfe report to the PriceWaterhouseCoopers report to the Moran report and they speak for themselves. There was a lot of change in Europe in terms of reform of the Common Fisheries Policy, CFP, in 2013. As a lot of reform and new implementing decisions are coming in terms of control and enforcement, now is the correct time to reopen this Act that I deem to be flawed legislation from the outset. Previous speakers talked about the need for administrative sanctions and fines and for it to be proportionate across the board and the need to move away from everything being based on criminality. That simply does not stack up.

From a processor's point of view, we already have administrative sanctions and fines from the SFPA when it comes to food safety because the SFPA deals with control and enforcement and food regulation. One half of the house has administrative fines and sanctions and the other half is based solely on criminality. That does not stack up and we need to look at that. It is critical for the industry that this Act is reopened and re-examined and is fit for purpose because it has never been fit for purpose.

Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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I invite Mr. Burke to make his opening statement.

Mr. Cormac Burke:

I thank members for the opportunity to speak to them. Some 19 years ago, this Act gave birth to the Sea-Fisheries Protection Authority but a fact that seems to have been lost over the years is that this body is only empowered under the Food Safety Authority of Ireland Act 1998. Intended to give the fishing industry an equal level of monitoring and control as in all EU member states, this Act has failed and has only resulted in an organisation that sees itself as being unaccountable to any level of Irish governance. The European Commission's fisheries control website states that the aim of the system is to ensure that the CFP rules are applied correctly so that fishing activities are equally environmentally, economically and socially sustainable but for Ireland, the 2006 Act and later the proposed inclusion of a penalty points system for fishing infringements as part of the Criminal Justice Act 2011 and the subsequent amendments in 2019 and 2022 have not resulted in a fair system of control, as it has been the SFPA's own interpretation of EU regulations that has been the problem.

Ireland’s fishing industry always accepted that being part of the EU and the Common Fisheries Policy meant the need to adopt a structure of fisheries control but only if this was a fair EU-wide control system and within the well-worn term of a level playing field, a far cry from what exists in Ireland today.

For today’s meeting, I sought the opinions of many fishing industry personnel and it is clear there is general lack of trust, co-operation or understanding. The current groundswell of opinion in Ireland is that Irish law needs to be amended to see the removal of the SFPA’s own version of the penalty point system and its replacement by a system on a par with elsewhere in the EU, and that, as a matter of great urgency, the SFPA be reformed, reduced in size and powers, and placed under direct control of the Food Safety Authority. The resulting fisheries monitoring body would be answerable to the marine Minister and the Oireachtas fisheries committee.

Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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We will open the floor to questions. Deputy Maxwell is first.

David Maxwell (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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I would like a clarification from Mr. Rihan. There are only 12 members of the body he was talking about, but there should be 14. What body is that again?

Mr. Dominic Rihan:

It is the consultative committee that is set out in the Act as an oversight body for the SFPA.

David Maxwell (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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Is that set up by the Oireachtas?

Mr. Dominic Rihan:

It is part of the Act. It is defined in the Act itself.

David Maxwell (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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It is our body-----

Mr. Dominic Rihan:

Yes.

David Maxwell (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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-----and we have only 12 on it. We should have 14.

Mr. Dominic Rihan:

There are supposed to be 14 members. The Act refers to 14 members but there are currently only 12 members sitting on it.

David Maxwell (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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Okay, I thank Mr. Rihan. That is the clarification.

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the witnesses for their submissions. I previously expressed my serious concern around the SFPA at the agriculture committee, which dealt with fisheries at the time. I want to go through the various points that have been made on accountability and the consistency of approach compared with other European member states.

First, I want to share a wee story for members here who might not be aware just how serious this is. I was invited a while back by a fish factory in Killybegs to examine how blue whiting was being landed and how it was being overseen. The blue whiting was landed into a truck that was obviously full of water. It is very important to keep it separated and keep it fresh with respect to it being marketed. Apparently, there was an insistence on weighing it at the harbour side. When you go up to the factory - I went up and looked at the whole operation - you see a conveyor belt. You can imagine the fish coming through on a conveyor belt and being weighed in real time. The actual weighing system was tied up with cable ties and was tamper-proof. I was learning one step at a time. The next thing I noticed was that there were cameras. I was told that the SFPA monitors this. I went upstairs and there was a range of monitors like you would see in a prison. The last time I saw something like that was when I visited the Long Kesh prison in the North. There might have been six or seven real-time monitors. Apparently, the SFPA was watching on the screen as the fish were being weighed. It also has access at any time to land at the factory and inspect the rear, go into the freezer or go anywhere else. It has full access. I do not know what industry in Ireland would facilitate cameras on what they are doing round the clock but that is what was happening in that factory, and that still was not good enough. The SFPA still wanted more. We are strangling our industry.

I am led to understand that if you look at the number of people directly involved in fishing and maybe the seafood industry, and measure that against the people who work in the range of agencies - the Department of the marine, BIM and SFPA - there might be more people working in those regulatory and oversight bodies than the industry itself. I wanted to say that at the outset. I have seen this with my own eyes and I am profoundly concerned about it. This meeting is not about my opinion, however - my opinion on this is fixed - it is to get the feedback of the witnesses.

I ask the witnesses to give us a sense of what the oversight is like in other member states. If you land at a harbour in another member state rather than at Castletownbere, Killybegs or one of the other harbours, what is the experience in other member states? How many personnel are there? How does Ireland compare, in the witnesses' experience?

Mr. Brendan Byrne:

First, Deputy Mac Lochlainn is 100% correct with regard to blue whiting. We are the global leaders in developing that species of fish for human consumption. Now, because of a particular regulation, if you are monitoring on the pier, we are virtually taken out of the market. Due to the soft nature of blue whiting and depending on the year or time of year, the ambient temperature and fat content, it is a very difficult fish to manage and handle and yet maintain it in the food chain. With what is being asked of us time and time again, we have seen that if we are asked to monitor on the pier for a particularly large landing or indeed any landing, we end up being unable to do that. The control and enforcement regulation is prohibiting us from doing blue whiting for human consumption.

The second part of the Deputy's question is the kernel of why we are here. If you go to any other port in Europe, there is nothing like the degree of monitoring, oversight and supervision you have in this country. It is so much so that the statistics for the last two years show that foreign vessels have stopped coming to this country. There was one year when foreign landings into Ireland fell by 58%. That is because they were just not going to put up with the degree of hassle and haranguing that there is in this country to land fish. At the same time, we are the only country in Europe that has a live feed into the competent authority. We have also CCTV images maintained for 31 days. That equates to 80,000 hours of CCTV every 31 days. On the factories Deputy Mac Lochlainn referred to, there are 78 or 79 cameras there. He is correct; not alone are there live feeds into the SFPA offices, there is the fallback of 31 days. Any hour or minute of those recordings, the 80,000 hours I referred to, can be sought by the SFPA and we are obligated to provide that.

As a country, we have the gold standard of regulation but there has to be a balance between having a gold standard and allowing an industry to function. You cannot have regulation that prohibits you from functioning. If we had that, no sector of this economy would be working. Unfortunately, this is what has happened in the fishing sector because until now we did not have the oversight of an Oireachtas committee, for example, where we can articulate this point. This is where we are at and it is why, as I have continuously said for the last three years, as processors we are struggling and there will be factory closures. We are 100% for robust regulation and enforcement but do not tie my hands, throw me into the deep end and tell me to swim - I just cannot do it. That is what has happened in this country. We are struggling.

Enforcement and control regulations are there for the betterment of us all but they should be made practical. They should not inhibit the processing blue whiting, or any other species for that matter.

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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The next question is on oversight. I found it extraordinary. Everybody on this committee accepts the need for a regulatory authority. There is a job to be done and that is fair enough but it is about common-sense policing, as I would refer to it.

We all know the difference in communities between having a garda who works for the community and having one who does not, and the outworkings of that. Can I get feedback on that in the context of oversight and regulation? This committee has tasked itself with looking at this matter and at the need to review the Act. Five different areas have been highlighted. I am trying to zone in on those two and how we compare with other European countries. It is now about oversight. What would be the vision for how that oversight should work? Mr. Burke has talked about taking one wing under one regulatory authority and another directly under the Department. I would like to get a sense of the witnesses' thoughts on that.

Mr. Dominic Rihan:

It is an important question. Again, to stress what Mr. Byrne said, we want to have effective control but we want to have an agency where there is some oversight and some checks and balances. At the moment, we do not see those checks and balances. The consultative committee, as I mentioned, has a strong role to play here. In many respects, the Act envisaged it to have that very clear oversight role, but it does not have teeth at the moment. It has no real say. Where do any recommendations it makes go and what happens? That is one level of oversight that really needs to be looked at in regard to how that is working. I do not necessarily think the Bill needs to be changed in any sense. It just needs to be interpreted. A commitment needs to be made by the SFPA and the Minister to engage properly with the committee and allow that discussion that is absolutely needed.

The other important point the Deputy made was about the oversight and practicality. We do not have that level of practicality any more. It seems almost to have been taken away from port officers on the ground. One small example of that is that in one harbour in particular, fisheries officers would help the fishermen to measure their nets to make sure they were legal, in a non-adversarial way, and tell them they need to change their gear because it is bordering on being illegal. That was taken away. They were told not to do that in any circumstances whatsoever, yet that practicality is really important and helps the job of a fisherman, which is a hard one. It makes it a little easier for them.

Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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I remind members to direct their questions at particular witnesses if they want a particular witness to respond. I call Senator Boyle.

Manus Boyle (Fine Gael)
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I thank the witnesses for coming. It is great to see them today. How would Mr. Burke describe the relationship between the industry and the monitoring authorities as of now?

Mr. Cormac Burke:

That is a big question. Lest there be any grey area or confusion on this subject, I would say the relationship between the senior management of the SFPA and the fishing industry could only be described as toxic. This largely arises with good historical reason from a deep mistrust of the organisation by fishermen and an apparent strategy of criminalisation and victimisation by the authority in question. The industry has experienced this agency displaying a level of arrogance in presuming that the entire fishing industry, catching, processing and retailing, should exist solely to support the existence of the SFPA and not, as it should be, the other way around. With the Irish fishing fleet reducing in size by almost 40% in the past ten years, one would expect that due to there being fewer boats, smaller quotas and fewer landings, the fisheries monitoring body in comparison would also have reduced in size. Yet, we see a staff increase of over 400%, with the total SFPA employment numbers reaching approximately 300. It is currently still advertising available jobs. The need for these increased numbers of monitoring officers is being justified by including even the smallest punt landing a couple of lobsters to now come up with the latest figures of an astonishing 132,000 landings last year.

Manus Boyle (Fine Gael)
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I thank Mr. Burke. I have a second question. His summary mentioned that the SFPA is attempting to justify itself. Can I have more details on that, please?

Mr. Cormac Burke:

It is clear the SFPA, as I said a moment ago, is a disproportionate force in relation to the industry it is tasked to oversee. Some figures that even a layman can grasp are that in Ireland there is one garda for approximately every 360 citizens, whereas there is one SFPA officer for every six Irish fishing vessels. Conversely, if we were to allocate fishery officers to fishing vessels in the same ratio as gardaí to the general public, there would be five SFPA officers in the entire country.

Taken in pro rata terms compared with other fishing nations, this puts Ireland as one of the highest in Europe and raises many questions among those in the Irish industry, who are demanding to see similar numbers of fishery officers to those in much stronger fishing nations, such as Spain, France and the Netherlands, compared with Ireland. These figures are held by the SFPA's bosses, the European Fisheries Control Agency, EFCA, but are not made widely available for public viewing.

Manus Boyle (Fine Gael)
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It is clear Mr. Burke is passionate about the fishing industry and is seeking greater transparency and management of it through certain authorities. Will he briefly summarise how he feels about the state of the industry at the moment? How has it deteriorated over the years?

Mr. Cormac Burke:

I believe that the cause of salvaging our fishing industry is worth fighting for, but the agencies that are supposed to be managing it are certainly not worth fighting for. Ireland's fishing industry has been very good to the agencies and the quangos that have mismanaged it. Deputy Mac Lochlainn mentioned figures a while ago and I will repeat them. There are 17,000 people trying to survive and make a living from this industry and fewer than 1,000 people sponging from it, putting in the hours and waiting to collect their pensions. Included in this group of people are those who are masquerading as so-called industry supporters, who must be identified, exposed and cleared out once and for all, if this industry is to see any hope of a revival. That last line might sound a bit cryptic but I am going to mention this anyway. Twenty-four hours before the previous committee meeting here, I was diagnosed with cancer. That brings sharply into focus for me the cancer that we have in our own industry, which we must root out or else the patient is going to die.

Manus Boyle (Fine Gael)
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I am sorry to hear that, Cormac. I hope it works out well for you now.

Mr. Cormac Burke:

It was not intended to be dramatic.

Manus Boyle (Fine Gael)
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I have a question for Mr. Byrne. Does he think we are working on a level playing field? Is the rule book in Holland, Germany and France the same as that in this country?

Mr. Brendan Byrne:

It is the same rule book. We are working under the same regulations. The problem relates to how each member state or competent authority interprets those rules. This goes back to the point I addressed earlier in response to Deputy Mac Lochlainn. We are all for sustainability and robust regulation. At the deepest point of the recession, the sector I represent invested €2.4 million of our own money, without any grant aid, into building up this robustness. However, there has to be an equilibrium between all those regulations and how we are interpreting and applying them to allow an industry to function. We cannot strangle the industry by overinterpreting a regulation that is applied across Europe but does not hamper factories in Denmark, Sweden or wherever else. We have to compare and contrast that. We land only 15% of the fish caught around the Irish coast; 85% is caught by other countries. What regulation and control is there of that?

I represent the factories yet there are factory ships at sea. There is not one camera on them. There is not one live feed to anything. There is no oversight of them whatsoever, yet the members I represent compete with those people in the open markets of Europe, the Far East, everywhere. It is far from a level playing field. It is all happening in plain sight around the waters of Ireland. If someone can tell me that is fair, I am here to listen.

Manus Boyle (Fine Gael)
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I thank Mr. Byrne. Seeing as Mr. Rihan worked for the State and then in Europe, he knows how this works. Is there anything we can do to attract the foreign vessels to land fish in Killybegs? This would be a big help to the factories. Speaking bluntly, are the rules and regulations the main reason boats are being put off landing catches in Killybegs, Castletownbere and all around the coast?

Mr. Dominic Rihan:

It is absolutely the control regime that is preventing boats from landing, particularly in Killybegs. I know from talking to my Danish and Swedish colleagues that the vessel owners in those countries fear going into harbour because they do not know where they will end up. Until there is a regime that lets vessel owners know that they are going to be treated fair and equitably, they will not land there. It is not worth their while. Killybegs has the massive advantage of its proximity to the fishing grounds yet they choose to steam all the way back to Denmark or to Scotland. That says it all about what is going on. Again, it does come down to what Mr. Byrne said. It is the interpretation of the rules, the harmonisation of the rules and being proportionate in the level of control they are giving to both Irish and visiting boats. These boats have an important role to play in providing raw material to the processors that are struggling. There is a level of heavy-handedness at times. Vessels feel they are being targeted and victimised. A lot of time is spent on inspections that are not necessary. They feel that certain vessels are being victimised.

Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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Deputy Gallagher is next and he has ten minutes.

Pat Gallagher (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the representatives from the various organisations for attending. I have heard nothing today that I have not heard previously. It brings me back to 2005 when I had responsibility for the marine. I received numerous calls from fishermen from the sides of piers around the country informing me about the damage being caused to fish coming out of refrigerated sea water tanks into ambient temperatures and back in again. That immediately caused problems. It affected the quality of the fish. I realised how futile that was. I took it upon myself, together with the officials in the Department, to meet with Commissioner Borg from Malta and explain to him how ludicrous this system was. Weighing the fish on the pier before it was brought to the factories was affecting the quality. He had to come to Ireland to witness first-hand what was happening. This culminated in a meeting I had with him and officials from both sides. He agreed that what was being done was futile. He agreed to allow the majority of the fish to be weighed in the factories. This lasted for a long time and resolved many difficulties, particularly in relation to quality. Unfortunately, it changed sometime later. I was told going into that meeting that while we had a number of pelagic species, such as herring, mackerel, horse mackerel and blue whiting, we should only concentrate on one or two of those species to sell this to the Commission. I informed them that it was all or nothing. They are all pelagic fish. That resulted in the Commissioner and his officials agreeing to the fish being weighed in the factories provided they came from within 48 miles of the port of Killybegs. This was because there were no weighing facilities in Rathmullan and Kincaslough. It worked extremely well but now it has gone in the other direction. We recently witnessed the futility of good quality blue whiting coming into Killybegs and it having to be weighed. If it has to be weighed in the factory, there is only way it can go; when they come up the pier, they turn right and head for the fishmeal factory. We should be trying to ensure that those fish are processed for human consumption but it is not happening.

The Act has to be reviewed. We have a Common Fisheries Policy but it is being implemented differently and sensibly in all of the other maritime states apart than Ireland. I cannot understand why we are doing this. I expect that representatives from the Sea Fisheries Protection Authority, SFPA, is looking in today to hear what we have to say. I would prefer to be looking the SFPA officials straight in the eye and ask them why they are doing this to the detriment of the sector. As one or two of the witnesses have pointed out, other nationalities could come into Ireland with their fish and process it here. However, they know if they come in at present their catch will be going to fishmeal, which lowers the price. They are at an advantage to go back to their own countries and land them there.

I was furious when the penalty points system was introduced. It is in no other country and it is an administrative fine. In 2016 or 2017, I took it on myself to introduce a motion in the Dáil to rescind that statutory instrument. It was the first time in the history of the State that a statutory instrument was overturned. It was overturned because we went and explained it to all of the TDs. The penalty points system came to an end in 2020 with a stroke of a pen.

It is not good enough. The courts are being clogged up with these cases. We know that all of the cases brought to court after Killybegs and other places were raided went nowhere. There was not even an apology for doing this. We must ensure there is a fairness to this system. As members of this committee, we must ensure there is fairness and equality and that we are treated the same as the rest of Europe. We will have to meet with the Minister having heard from the members. We will also have to ensure there is a review of this and that it is implemented in a fair fashion. We cannot have a regulator who is responsible unless it is fair. There is no reason the oversight body should not be updated as soon as members resign or move elsewhere. We cannot have self-regulation without oversight. What about the Wolfe report? What about PcW report? What about the Moran report? What happened to them? They are lying on shelves. They made recommendations but nothing has happened. The reason for this is that it does not suit some of the people who are in authority.

Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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The SFPA will appear before this committee in due course and the Minister will attend another meeting. We also intend to hear testimonies from representatives for the fisheries organisations and producer organisations.

Mr. Brendan Byrne:

The Deputy is 100% correct. Legislative reform is key. We have legislation that since its inception has caused problems across the industry with different problems in different years. There has been a multitude of reports. We need to put a proper toolkit in place that deals with enforcement, compliance issues and how the sector will be regulated because it is simply not working. It is impacting on the sector and how we function.

It is putting us at a competitive disadvantage in Europe and it is impacting on livelihoods in the sector, from catching to processing. I do not think any legislation enacted by the Houses of the Oireachtas has this intent but this is how it has worked.

Mr. Cormac Burke:

For the information of the committee and anybody listening in, a Swedish boat landed in Killybegs a couple of years ago. I cannot remember its actual offence, perhaps one of my colleagues will, but if it had been an Irish vessel there would have been a court case, penalty points and a massive financial penalty. The Swedish boat in question opted to face its own authority back home. When it did so it received a €300 fine and a minor warning for the offence. This puts into perspective the different interpretation by the SFPA compared with the authorities in other states.

Mr. John Lynch:

I thank Deputy Gallagher for his comments and questions. One of the issues he spoke about was penalty points and I want to elaborate a little on some of the serious concerns we have about the penalty points administrative system. I spoke earlier about the Criminal Justice Act. There is a dual system of sanctions. There is the Criminal Justice Act and the administrative sanctions of penalty points for skippers and vessel owners. Those who receive penalty points have 21 days to appeal. By the time a case comes up in the criminal courts, the appeals system will have been followed through and the penalty points will have been applied. If an owner or skipper goes on to the court under the Criminal Justice Act and is acquitted, and so found innocent and not to have committed any offence, the penalty points can remain on the vessel, on the licence and on the skipper's ticket. They can remain even though the person has been found innocent in a court of law. This is completely wrong, and most people would consider this to be wrong.

Another aspect is the three-year drop-off period for penalty points. If somebody is found to have committed an offence and is sanctioned with penalty points, they are to drop off after three years. We were told at the time this would equate to road traffic legislation, whereby penalty points drop off after three years. However, in fisheries if another offence were to be detected within the three years, the whole clock starts again. Even very minor fishery offences can lead to an accumulation of points if any small offence is detected within the three-year period. This is a serious encumbrance on a vessel owner who may have different skippers over the three-year period. These are the main issues with the penalty points system. For this reason, we suggest the Act needs review and potential amendment.

Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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Our next contributor is Deputy Whitmore, and as she is joining us remotely, I ask her to confirm she is in the precincts of Leinster House.

Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats)
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I am indeed. I thank the witnesses for their contributions. This system is relatively new to me and, I imagine, to some other members of the committee also. I am trying to get my head around how it operates. When I look through the penalty system and the list of infringements, from a fisheries management perspective I can understand why each of the infringements is listed. They range from not filling out catch-related data to using incorrect gear to fishing in areas where people are not allowed to do so. To me it seems necessary to monitor and enforce the infringements because historically we have had problems with overfishing. The one thing we tend to focus on is the difficulties, and I understand there are many of them, for fishermen at present. The reality is that if we do not get our stocks back to sustainable levels these difficulties will continue. If the real issue is that Europe does not apply the same standard of infringements, should we be seeking for them to be across the board? It should not be that we reduce ours to European standards but that other countries in Europe should be applying as stringent standards as we do. If they are necessary from a fisheries protection and stock management perspective, then there will have to be a way of dealing with the infringements.

I understand the discussion on the catch having to be removed from ice to measure it in the factory, and that this could impact on the quality of the catch. Is there a need for more on-board management and monitoring that would apply equally to the boats so the impact does not happen at the fish processing level? Is this something that is possible? I am not sure who is best to answer the questions. Perhaps it is Mr. Rihan on the processing perspective and Mr. Lynch on the infringements.

Mr. Dominic Rihan:

I will take the second question. With regard to on-board monitoring, in some respects a lot can be done on board, and what is happening from next year is that pelagic vessels fishing in UK waters will have to have camera systems on board. This legislation will apply in Europe from 2028. This legislation will come in, whether we like it or not, and it will provide a level of on-board monitoring. The cameras systems themselves are what they are and what people can do with them is what they can do with them. The problem with this is that we are introducing more and more layers of legislation. The EU in particular speaks about simplification of regulation. There are certain elements of control. If we have this on-board monitoring and it is attractive, then why must we have the same level on shore? What will happen is that we will have cameras on board and more monitoring on board, and then we will bring the catch ashore and have the same level of onshore measurement. We will get to a stage where we will be almost giving every fish an individual name. On-board monitoring is coming. The Deputy is correct that it will provide a layer of monitoring but there needs to be a quid pro quo, whereby this means that certain measures done on shore can be relaxed. We do not need to do double, treble or quadruple counting. This is where we are heading.

We must also remember that a fishing boat is a fishing boat. It is a difficult environment to work in. There are limitations to what fishers can do on board a boat in terms of sampling, measuring, weighing and everything else. We do not have factory vessels. The majority of the demersal fleet are 24 m boats with limited space on board. It is very important to take into account the practicalities of what can be done. I accept a layer of on-board monitoring will be brought in and will help in certain instances.

Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats)
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I thank Mr. Rihan.

Mr. John Lynch:

I thank Deputy Whitmore for her questions. She asked about infringements and the sanctions that pertain to them. The infringements are what they are as they are described in an Act but there are different levels of infringement. To go back to road traffic legislation, being 2 km over the speed limit is a completely different issue to being 22 km over it. We have three areas of possible infringement on a vessel. These pertain to the vessel, the catch and the gear. An enormously complex set of regulations in the European Union governs this and there are many layers to it.

It is very difficult to be 100% correct at all times. There may be a small issue like a mesh size being a couple of millimetres too small, but that carries the same potential sanction as it being 20 mm too small, as I explained a minute ago. An administrative system should take this into account and distinguish between a first offence and multiple, continuous offences. It has to be accepted things can go wrong and things can happen from time to time. The system should be balanced and have sanctions relative to the offences that have been committed. The offences described by Deputy Whitmore would all constitute serious offences no matter what level of the offence had been committed. A small offence is also a serious offence with fisheries. In fact, nearly all offences in fisheries are considered serious offences and they are all managed in the same manner. In a review we could take into account the seriousness of the offence and have a staged process for sanctions, rather than the dual system we have, which we deem to be completely inappropriate. To be honest, it is not actually effective.

Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats)
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That seems perfectly reasonable. I think Mr. Murphy wants to come in on that as well.

Mr. Patrick Murphy:

I was travelling from Santiago airport to Vigo. I fear we have some bad news coming with the advice from ICES on the state of the stocks in our waters. I want to explain something that is not really understood. Ireland has two quota-balancing systems introduced that are different and are not in any other country, which prevent us, as a country, from overfishing. Anybody who has a misdemeanour by catching more fish than is allowable in the calendar month must pay it back. The same goes for pelagic fish. We have a self-regulating rule above and beyond the CFP. That is how serious we take ensuring we are fishing sustainably in our own waters. We do not overfish. Even if one vessel, unfortunately, catches more fish than it is allowed in a calendar month, in the system we operate it is then deemed to be overfishing. However, we never exceed the quotas that are set by ICES in the calendar year. If we do, we look for swaps from other countries to take it from them to make sure overfishing does not occur in the vast majority of species in the calendar year, in accordance with ICES. We do our best to make sure of that, even if somebody catches too much fish rather than the fish they are targeting in a multi-stock fishery. When a boat shoots its net, there is cod, haddock and hake that could all come into the net. Depending on what fish they have allowable to them in the calendar month and how much they have caught, sometimes they can exceed that. Then boats move, stop fishing, change their gear or change their net types. A net manufacturer made a statement to our Taoiseach when he visited Castletownbere. He said his job is now to design nets not to catch fish, but to avoid fish. We are trying to develop gear and technical measures that allow us to avoid the fish we are scarce in and to target the fish that we have. There are hundreds of thousands of moneys spent on this and gear trials. We are continuously trying to stay within the bounds of the regulations.

For Ireland, this is really difficult because we do not have a level playing field. As my colleagues have said, that is abundantly clear. We have a system where our regulatory authority has access, to the kilogramme, to a fishing vessel's fish on a day to day basis. It sees what authorisations they have and what fish they are allowed to catch in that month, and it can count down within each month how much fish that boat has left to catch. The authority does not have that data from visiting fleets. We see lorries coming in, picking up fish and going straight out to the other countries and they are checked over there.

I will give one example of the frustration within our industry. We have to submit our sales dockets within 48 hours of landing on the shore. Those fish could be transported to France and it could take 40 hours to get there. By the time they are sold, the skipper of the boat might have landed or gone home. The information might not be back, but he is duty bound to have that information in or it is an infringement and he has broken the law. This is the harsh reality of the implication of the regulation that is applied to Irish vessels, and it is not a level playing pitch. I can assure the committee of that. Other boats come in and their clock starts when it lands on the floor and comes out of the lorry and their control agency starts to look at it. There is not a level playing pitch.

I assure the committee there is no fisherman who wants to destroy his industry on the water. They are completely and utterly frustrated at the amount of activity going on inside Irish waters by visiting fleets. They see the stocks going down every year and they are doing their utmost. I remind the committee that our fleet was 400 vessels over 15 m in 2004. We now have 140 active boats in our fleet. Maybe with the rights there would be 150, so ten more. That is it. This is where my colleagues are trying to emphasise that we are at a crisis point in the history of Irish fishing. Since I have been a young fella, I have never seen the number of boats leaving our ports and harbours around our country. This legislation is not being applied fairly to us and other countries. That is the truth.

Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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Thank you, Mr. Murphy.

Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats)
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Can I come back in on some of those points?

Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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I am going to move on. I gave a little leeway for this line of questioning because Mr. Murphy was been in earlier. We are well over time. There will be an opportunity towards the end of the meeting to go back around. I call Senator O'Reilly.

Sarah O'Reilly (Aontú)
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It is great to see all the witnesses here today. Like Deputy Whitmore, I am new to this and I had to do a good bit of research. I read all the witnesses' documentation and submissions yesterday. There are a few very clear themes coming through. There seems to be a deeply held belief that the oversight and regulation is not proportional. The Seafood Ireland Alliance in its submission states that even minor infringements are subject to criminal proceedings. Even minor infringements are leading to convictions, resulting in fishermen having a criminal record which can create all sorts of financial, travel and social-standing issues. That is a little bit shocking. Can witnesses give me an example, without naming names, of a minor infringement that has led to a criminal conviction?

Mr. Brendan Byrne:

Senator O'Reilly is correct that we cannot speak to an individual case but I will answer this question by reference to the remarks of a previous speaker who listed one or two offences that are serious infringements. We need to be clear. In effect, any infringement, be it minor, serious or otherwise, is treated as a penalty point. That is the elephant in the room. We can read the penalty points statutory instrument ourselves. It specifies A, B, C but the facts of the matter are what is happening on the ground. Technically, everything is subject to a penalty point. Only one other country in Europe tried that, namely, Sweden. Within ten to 15 months it recoiled from that because it does not work. On minor offences it will end up putting the fleet off the sea. What is worse in Ireland, and Mr. John Lynch addressed this point, is that one can never get penalty points cleared because if one commits any minor offence within three years the clock goes back to nought. It is designed to never be fair. That is the problem. What was signed on 29 August 2020 having been rescinded by Dáil Éireann in April 2018 is complete anathema to fairness. That is what we need to address.

Sarah O'Reilly (Aontú)
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In his opening statement, Mr. Lynch said, "Ireland has chosen to put in place legislation that goes far beyond what is in other member states". I want clarity on that because there is a bit of confusion. Is it the legislation or is it the way it is being interpreted? Is it both? I do not understand. If we are the only country in Europe that has penalty points, has that been legislated for?

Mr. Brendan Byrne:

It is secondary legislation, a statutory instrument. How Ireland is interpreting the statutory instrument that was signed on 29 August means that an infringement of any nature is deemed to be a serious infringement. That is my interpretation. There will be a cumulative effect. The longer this is left without reform, the worse it will get. I imagine that when representatives of the SFPA are before the committee, the first thing they will say is that TDs and Senators enacted this by primary legislation or statutory instrument, which is secondary legislation. We have a legislative problem that is going to cripple the fishing industry. That is the elephant in the room.

Sarah O'Reilly (Aontú)
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Would Mr. Byrne have any proposed amendments?

Mr. Brendan Byrne:

In 2018, we had the advantage of having Deputies Mac Lochlainn and Gallagher in the House. There were numerous amendments and an alternative statutory instrument was drafted at that time, in conjunction with all the Opposition parties. Multiple courses of action could be more practical and would still provide a robust control and enforcement system. We cannot have a system that is completely based on criminality. We need administrative sanctions that are proportionate and reasonable to be implemented in conjunction with the penalty points system. Only one or two offences under the penalty points system in Spain are considered serious infringements. In Ireland, basically everything is a serious offence. We are all a part of the one European Union. We all read from the one rule book. How can it be so different in another country? I do not accept that we must encourage other countries to come up to our standard. Our standard will destroy an industry because it is not practical. Law must have a commonsense approach. The statue of Lady Justice is blindfolded because she is fair and balanced. Law must be fair, balanced and proportionate, but that is not the case here.

Sarah O'Reilly (Aontú)
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I am going to give an example. In the case of, say, a 7g area where somebody might fish for monkfish, would Mr. Byrne generally accept that it is impossible to fish in that area without catching other fish, such as black sole? What can be done? What would Mr. Byrne propose to stop fishermen getting into hassle for catching something? It is never not going to happen.

Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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May I intervene briefly? Perhaps not everybody can see, but Mr. Murphy has indicated he wishes to speak. That is just to let the other witnesses know. The witnesses can decide between themselves who will respond.

Mr. John Lynch:

I was not sure whether I or Mr. Murphy was to come in next. I thank the Senator for the question. What she is referring to is a specific piece of legislation, a regulation that came into effect at the start of 2016 and then progressed into effect for all species in 2019. She is right in what she said. However, one would not say that in all of the 7f and 7g areas, as designated by International Council for the Exploration of the Sea, ICES, that one could not catch monkfish without catching sole. There are certainly areas within that massive area where one could catch monkfish without catching sole. One is always involved in mixed fisheries and that is a balance one must apply to one's own share of the quota on the day. What quota is available will dictate where one fishes and for what. It is up to the individual to balance that.

There can be accidental catches, which one is obliged to log, bring ashore and record in the logbook. As Mr. Murphy referred to earlier, we then have a system of quota balancing, whereby that quota is paid back to the State for redistribution over a period of time. Usually, the balancing statement is available two months after the issue has arisen. There is then a quota balance over a period of one month or a number of months, depending on what a fisherman's access to quota is at that time.

Sarah O'Reilly (Aontú)
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How many proceedings are before the criminal court at the moment?

Mr. Dominic Rihan:

We do not know exactly. We do not have that information. We do, however, know that there are multiple sanctions against a number of skippers for what we would class as very minor infringements in terms of the margin of tolerance. It is like trying to find a needle in a haystack and report on a needle in a haystack. If you cannot find the needle, you are in trouble. There are many cases going through the courts. We are aware that in other member states where fishermen fish in the same way and to the same rules, there are not multiple cases.

Mr. Cormac Burke:

May I say something?

Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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Very briefly, Mr. Burke.

Mr. Cormac Burke:

We are talking about court cases. We often see people brought to court and cases being thrown out. Who pays the legal fees is never mentioned. If the fisherman does not, why is that information not appearing somewhere on the SFPA's books or on those of the Department of the marine? Year on year, we never see that money mentioned. The taxpayer paid, of course. I thought I would mention that.

Charles Ward (Donegal, 100% Redress Party)
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I thank the witnesses for coming. I will start by saying I am shocked that a boat can land from Sweden and take a fine from Sweden, whereas if an Irish boat lands, the fishermen are turned into criminals. That is absolutely shocking. From reading the witnesses' submissions, it is clear that over-the-top regulation is destroying Irish fisheries as we speak. It is amazing that we cannot get that balance right. We are turning fishermen into criminals. It is wrong on so many levels. We have the most punitive and severe penalty system in Europe. It is unfair and unreasonable. As Mr. Murphy said, our fleet has been reduced from 400 to approximately 100. There is no doubt but that amendments to the sea fisheries Act are needed. The SFPA must be reformed. It must be reduced and made answerable to this committee.

My first question is for anyone to answer. It is important for us to get a practical sense of the SFPA's role and its interactions on the ground with the industry. Does the SFPA have a constant presence on piers? What type of inspections or audits is it carrying out? How often is it carrying them out? Do the witnesses find that those inspections are targeted at certain piers and, more importantly, certain vessels? That is for any of the witnesses to answer.

Mr. Cormac Burke:

In the past five years, at the request of the fishing industry, the SFPA twice appeared before the previous iteration of the Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine. The Deputy's question reminds me that I should have mentioned this point earlier. On the first occasion, the SFPA told the committee that there existed a healthy working relationship between the SFPA and the fishing industry. The statement caused much anger in the industry, who feel that nothing could be further from the truth. At a subsequent Oireachtas hearing, when the subject was again brought up by TDs, the SFPA responded with a rather glib reply to the effect that a bit of friction between the organisation and fishermen is no harm.

This outraged the industry, many of whom feel they have been unfairly targeted, victimised and harassed by the authority over the years. That is to answer the first half of the question.

Mr. Patrick Murphy:

Outside of what we are talking about here, I wish Cormac all the best and hope that he gets the treatment. I am sad to hear what he said at the start of the meeting. I wish Cormac well.

To answer some of the questions without trying to put somebody into a light that might see them being visited, we had a scenario that has been mentioned. It is called the landing obligation where you are duty bound to land the species of fish that is caught, regardless of whether you have authorisation. One night, in the middle of the night, fishermen who had caught fish they were not targeting asked me what to do. I said that under the landing obligation, they had to land the catch yet they were still brought into a court case for being in breach of another law. To me, that is double jeopardy, which needs to be addressed. Why were these fishermen punished for following the law, and when it was looked at that they try to find another law that would criminalise them? This my example and this matter needs to be addressed.

Mr. John Lynch:

I thank Deputy Ward for his question on the issue of targeted inspections. Whether inspections are targeted or not, the reasons they may or may not be targeted really are outside of what we would see as our issues that we have with the sea-fisheries Act. Our issues come after the inspection and the result of the inspection. Our issues are what are the sanctions, how are the sanctions applied and are they fair; it is not whether we are inspected. People accept that an industry is open to being inspected. It is the fairness and evenness of the application of the law, and evenness of the application of the rules around the regulations within the European Union that is important for us. We believe we should have a level playing field with the rest of the member states and that we are not subject to more stringent conditions than other member states. We have a strong opinion on particular pieces that could be amended to make it a better managed fishery and ensure a better level playing field with the rest of our partners in Europe.

Mr. Brendan Byrne:

Briefly, from a processing perspective, we are under constant monitoring. As I said at the outset, we have CCTV cameras, live feedback to the SFPA's offices, unannounced checks, announced checks, cross-checks and every check in the wide world that anyone can possibly think of, which we welcome. In actual fact, as CEO of the Irish Fish Processors and Exporters Association I am on the record of saying why not put in the inspectors 24-7 and 365 days of the year in the factory? Do that but allow us to function so that we can employ people and have economic activity in our factories and coastal communities. There are rules and law and they will be obeyed. We have no difficulty with that but when a rule and a law is interpreted in such a way that it prohibits people from making a livelihood or creating employment in rural areas, then that is where I have a difficulty.

Charles Ward (Donegal, 100% Redress Party)
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My second question is on the submission supplied the Seafood Ireland Alliance, which states that progress has been made to build a positive working relationship between the industry and the SFPA. I ask the alliance to speak more on this. What has been more to rebuild the relationship? How do we continue to build this relationship, if we can, in the future?

Mr. Dominic Rihan:

Since I took up this job about a year and a bit ago, we have met the SFPA quite often to discuss various operational issues in terms of regulation coming down the tracks at us from Europe. Many of the meetings have been constructive. They are good dialogue and we get feedback. Those meetings have helped. They are important and have a value. However, it seems that the minute we walk out the room, the situation returns to where it was at a port and operational level. We have also had workshops with the SFPA. Again, they were on legislation coming down the tracks. The CCTV is one issue on which we have had engagement with the SFPA. They are robust sessions. They are useful to build bridges in that we can see where the authority is coming from and we can provide our view of what we see. Again, when legislation is coming down the tracks at us we have, at times, had a different interpretation of what that legislation says and what it is intended to do. So the two-way dialogue is important but we expect that the other side actually listens to what we say. I can point to the areas on the CCTV where the interpretation from an Irish perspective, compared with some of the other member states and the UK legislation that is coming down the tracks, is very punitive. Instead of looking at five or six cameras on board of fishing boats the SFPA want 20 cameras on board or to locate monitors and sensors all over, and whatever else. Again, they take a disproportionate interpretation of legislation. We are trying to build bridges. The dialogue is important and we welcome that engagement but there needs to be a two-way process. As I have said a few times, the consultative committee has a role but that role needs to be very much strengthened so that it has some teeth and some ability to effect change.

Mr. Brendan Byrne:

I have been in this post for four and half years. In case people think that I am an unreasonable individual, I must put on the record that there are some very good and very progressive, engaging people in the SFPA. I have to acknowledge that publicly. As I see it looking in the four and a half years that I have been around, sometimes what is agreed at levels of management or middle management in the SFPA does not necessarily trickle down to port level. If people look at the Wolfe report in detail they will see that it addresses that issue of restrained organisation and, likewise, in the PriceWaterhouseCoopers report, there were issues there that there is not a consistency of approach across the board. While there is a movement within the SFPA for more engagement, that is not trickling down. All you need is one port officer to be out of kilter and the entire project falls. That is the issue this committee will have to look at and I strongly advocate that the members of this committee visits ports because I could direct the committee to ports that are stymied because of interpretations of port officers.

David Maxwell (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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Good morning, gentlemen, and I wish Mr. Burke in his journey ahead.

As a Deputy who represents an inland county, I did not know anything about sea fishing and I am still learning. I visited Killybegs the week after I was appointed to this committee and my colleague, Senator Boyle, showed me around. When I left Killybegs to return home my view was that the people who are supposed be looking after you are doing a very bad job because I could see that they are doing everything to close the sea fishing industry in Ireland. What I saw on my day in Killybegs was just crazy stuff. One, there were boats tied up. I am sure that the thousands of people who will drive to Donegal this summer and drive around Killybegs will see all these beautiful boats tied up but will think to themselves that there is money in Killybegs and great work going on. Their views would be different if they knew that the boats were tied up two or three months ago and will not go out of the port until November because of regulations.

We all know that quotas have to be applied and I have no problem with that. The really sad part is that the fish processing factories, which have the best of technology, are closed for six or nine months of the year. During my visit I saw a machine on the port wall to take in fish.

I was told that a month previously, a load of blue whiting came in and they were instructed to put the blue whiting through the grader - if that is what it is called - through the fish machine. Everybody knows that blue whiting cannot go through that machine because it just goes into mush. I did not know this but one learns. That food that was good, was caught and came in but it all had to be sent for fish meal processing because somebody took the decision that it could not be brought up to the factory and put in.

I want to go back to what Deputy Mac Lochlainn said. I got a tour of the factory . If any other industry in Ireland was regulated and watched the way fishing is, both the boats and the processors, there would be anarchy because they would not put up with it. When walking around the factory you could see the cameras. I believe there were 100 cameras watching everything in the factory. I was shown a desk where someone was to take a sample of fish and there were three cameras pointing down. I would liken it to a casino where there are cameras pointing down watching people count the money to make sure. This is the level of technology watching. People are taking decisions that fish must be landed down in the docks and that they cannot be handled there. We are losing proper food.

The other point is on the catch samples. I am told that it is a basket down at the docks. They take a basket full of fish and then they take the sample. If this was done in the factory, the figures could be 100%. No matter what one looks at or what one sees, I believe it will get rid of the fishing industry in Ireland that in the next ten, 15 or 20 years. Our quotas are down but it is not just about the quotas being down, it is also about the processing of our fish. Not a boat will come into any of the ports, from what I am told, because of regulation. When you into Killybegs, there is what is like an aircraft control tower. This is where the SFPA sits. It is just a bank of television screens showing the whole area, I am told. From when you drive into Killybegs, into the processing part, and into the docks you are on CCTV all the time.

It seems that every obstacle is put in front of fishermen and the processors. I spoke to the owner of the fish processing factory. In the previous week or ten days, they had been at an international trade event. We are sending Ministers and people all around the world to promote Ireland for trade but this owner could not sell fish because he did not have enough. He could have sold more fish but he could not sell it because our own boats cannot land the product to get it into his fish processing factory. The problem is that because of the overzealousness of the rules that are being applied by the SFPA, no other boat will come in. So boats are coming down here but how many boats, and what tonnage, are sailing into Irish waters, collecting the fish and, because of overzealous regulation here in our ports, are turning and steaming back up to other countries to unload that product and put it through fish processing factories up there? It is bad enough that our boats are tied up for six to nine months of the year but it is crazy stuff to see factories sitting here closed up because nobody will come in due to the rules and regulations we seem to be applying but which no other country applies.

Mr. Burke referred to one SFPA officer for every six Irish fishing vessels and if you were to apply the Garda ratio, there would be five in the country. That shows us where we are.

I have two questions, the first of which relates to the 2006 Act. What do the gentlemen want us to do here, in layman's terms, to move to bring that Act up? I am sure that in the 19 years since that Act was adopted, the whole market and everything has changed. We have to look at what the witnesses believe we should do.

If the fishermen had a lobby for the fishing industry like the Irish Farmers Association over the last 30 or 40 years maybe we would not be looking at the wholesale destruction of the fishing industry. As a person looking in from the outside that is what I see it as. It is just the complete and wholesale destruction of our fishing industry in stymieing what our boats are allowed to catch. Even worse, fish production facilities cannot even have another boat come in. It is bad enough that a boat is out in Irish waters catching Irish fish but they cannot even bring it into our ports to be processed in our ports, whether that is Killybegs, Castletownbere or wherever it is. Those boats are having to sail to another country to unload that product and get it into the market. What do the gentlemen here want us to do, and me to do, in this committee to help them in respect of the 2006 Act?

Mr. Brendan Byrne:

I thank Deputy Maxwell. I want to address one issue, which we should have discussed more, and that is the sampling and weights extrapolation. It affects the processing sector and the catching sector equally. After all the investment the factories did, which was €2.4 million without grant aid, we did all that in good faith hoping it would help us function as a factory as if we were based in Denmark or Sweden. Along comes this weight sampling of 25 kg in a basket, as Deputy Maxwell said, on the pier. Even though we have the state-of-the-art weighing facilities in the factory all renewed and standardised, we are now back to using a basket on the pier of 25 kg. The make up of the contents of that basket is multiplied over the 25 tonnes as contained in the tanker and it determines what fish the boat has. It is not just the weighing of them, it will determine the species extrapolation. It defies any sense that in every factory there is state-of-the-art equipment, standardised across all the factories, under CCTV and recorded for 31 days, but we are doing it with the 25 kg basket. The contents of that 25 kg basket is multiplied over 25 tonnes and determines what the catch is. That impacts the factory. It impacts the three gentlemen here who are representing the catching sector. This is what we are talking about. If the catch composition of that basket is outside the 10% margin of tolerance for any of these gentlemen here, they are in court for a jury trial in criminal proceedings with penalty points to follow. If any sane individual can tell me this is fair or the law then I am all ears. That, however, is the reality of what we are dealing with. You wonder then, as I said in my opening remarks, why 58% less foreign catch lands into this country. They are looking at us. When I go to a conference or a meeting in Brussels they are saying "What are you at and where are you getting these laws?" Other countries have that but they do not do weight extrapolation. Denmark has it and it is not an issue up there. It is a hell of an issue here. The court in Donegal is going to be clogged for the next five years. What is the offence? The offence is that the boat man - let us call him Mr. Byrne - guessed wrong, has given a false guesstimate, and the law of this land states that Mr. Byrne is now before the court for criminal proceedings because he guessed wrong.

Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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I have a few questions. I am conscious of time so I will keep them very brief and I would ask for very brief responses. I share the concerns that have been outlined by our witnesses, by the members here, and by the sector. The survey published a couple of weeks ago by Deputy Mac Lochlainn and me put in sharp relief the feeling within coastal communities, the fishing industry and the fish producing industry around the heavy-handedness of the approach when it comes to fisheries protection and policing. My first question to Mr. Lynch is about the frequency of inspections, both on land and boardings, experienced by his members in the Irish South and East Fish Producers Organisation.

How frequent are they and how does that tally with the experiences of foreign boats landing here?

Mr. John Lynch:

I am not totally up to date on exactly how often each individual vessel is inspected but a vessel could be inspected at sea by the navy, the European control authority or the control authorities of a third country if it was fishing in the waters of a third country. Then it is subject to inspection and would have a number of inspections. Most of my vessels are demersal, so they would have a number of inspections per year onshore as well as at sea. There could be inspections from the SFPA onshore and then there could be an inspection of the fish in the auction hall or factory facility. The number of inspections is hard to define, and it is not the main issue. The main issue is how it is dealt with after the inspection.

Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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To me, it would be like driving from Dublin to Waterford on the M9 and at every single junction there was a speeding van. That is how it seems to me.

Mr. Murphy represents fishers in the south and west. When he and I spoke previously, we spoke a lot about supertrawlers. Could he outline to me the differences between how Irish fishing boats operating in our waters are treated from a policing and fisheries protection point of view versus the experience that larger vessels from other countries have while fishing in the same waters, or maybe a little further offshore?

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-----

Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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In a word, would it be Mr. Murphy's estimation that there is a two-tier system when it comes to policing and fisheries protection here vis-à-vis Irish and foreign flagged vessels?

Mr. Patrick Murphy:

The figures would say that, given that we only catch 15% of the fish. We are monitored way more than our foreign counterparts who are coming here. That is down to the system. We have an agreement with the other countries that they do not have to be monitored fully by our officers here. They can land their fish. Once the boxes landed add up, they do not look into the boxes or break them down by species. It is left to the others at home. They operate a different system where they can balance the books.

Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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Mr. Burke divulged some personal information earlier and all of us here wish him well. It was very powerful, in that it gave a metaphor for the overall state of the Irish fishing industry. We have spoken about this over the last couple of meetings. From a sea fisheries protection and policing point of view, what is the outlook, to borrow from the medical term?

Mr. Cormac Burke:

If the committee will indulge me for a minute, I prepared a closing statement that covers that in case I did not get the opportunity to speak to this committee again. I remind members that today's meeting has talked a lot about the SFPA, the imbalance and what we see as the injustice against the industry. It is a lot for the committee members to digest. If they take away nothing else today, I would like them to remember that many people in the industry have predicted for years that there will be some kind of civil war between the industry and the agencies as if it was an impending doom.

Our reality is actually much worse than that. In a civil war, there are two sides fighting but in the Irish fishing sector, there is only one side pushing the aggression. I can tell members it is not the fishing industry. The genuine people of this industry are trying to effect change through the official channels but are being undermined with every effort. This is a pattern that, over the last 20 years, we have seen increasing in Ireland more than in any other EU state, although the European Commission is itself complicit in standing by and watching the administrative abuse of the Irish fishing industry. It plays nicely into the EU narrative of using the resources that should belong to the people of Ireland as a bargaining chip in other EU wheeling and dealing.

Ireland, this Government and this committee must instigate a clean-up campaign of the Irish national marine agencies before they can complain of any injustice or mistreatment of the Irish fishing industry by the EU.

Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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On behalf of the committee and its members, I thank all of our witnesses for their contributions to today's meeting. We had a good, forthright conversation. We will suspend the meeting for 30 seconds to allow the witnesses to leave the room. I ask members to remain here because we have another part of the meeting coming up. While we are in private session, we will have a number of items of business to go through very quickly.

Mr. Patrick Murphy:

I thank the Chair.