Tom Kitt (Dublin South, Fianna Fail)

I thank Deputy Ferris for raising the matter. I will outline my Department's position on it.

The State's fishery protection capability, as provided by the Department of Defence on behalf of the Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources which has policy responsibility for sea fisheries protection, is delivered by the Naval Service with assistance from the Air Corps.

The main day-to-day role of the Naval Service is to provide a fishery protection service in accordance with the State's obligations as a member of the European Union. The service is tasked with patrolling all Irish waters from the shoreline to the outer limits of the exclusive fishery limit, which covers an area of 132,000 square miles. These patrols are carried out on a regular basis and are directed to all areas of Irish waters as necessary. Fishery protection activity accounts for more than 90% of all Naval Service patrol time.

The operational targeting of the protection effort is co-ordinated with the Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources in accordance with procedures set down in the service level agreement between the Departments. Such targeting takes account of previous history of fishing, infringements, sightings, fishing zones, closed areas and species and allocated quotas amongst other matters. A comprehensive process is in place to identify and agree patrol plans and inspection targets. The objective in all cases is the protection of the fishing assets of the State.

With regard to the incident referred to by Deputy Ferris involving the fishing vessel Celtic Sun, on Friday, 27 May 2005 Naval Service officers from the LE Emer boarded the Celtic Sun some six miles off the Clare coast and carried out a routine inspection of the vessel. It was found not to be carrying an EU logbook, which is a requirement under national and European Union legislation for all fishing vessels of more than 10 m in length. The Naval Service did not detain the vessel. The skipper was issued with a written warning and required to depart the fishing grounds and return to port to obtain an EU logbook.

There is no undue concentration by the Naval Service on fishery control in terms of the Irish fishing effort within Irish territorial waters. Obviously in numerical terms the Naval Service inspects more Irish than non-Irish vessels because there are more Irish vessels in our patrol area. However, over the past three years statistics show that the percentage of non-Irish vessels in the patrol area boarded and inspected by the Naval Service is greater than the percentage of Irish vessels so inspected. In 2004, Irish vessels accounted for 50% of vessels sighted in the patrol area but only 44% of boardings and inspections.

The overall objective Irish seas fisheries and monitoring, surveillance and control is to ensure the highest possible level of compliance by all fishing vessels with the requirement of international, EU and national fisheries law. The Department of Defence, Naval Service and Air Corps will continue to work in partnership with the Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources in this regard. Co-operation with other member states will also continue to be pursued in the interests of effective monitoring, surveillance and control of all fishing activity in a consistent and co-ordinated manner across the EU.

I thank Deputy Ferris for raising this matter. We always deal with these issues late in the day. That is the official response to the matter and if he wishes to raise any other issues in the near future he should feel free to contact me.

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