John Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)

The possibility of introducing administrative sanctions was comprehensively considered at the time of the passage of the Sea-Fisheries and Maritime Jurisdiction Bill through the Oireachtas in 2005 and 2006 but these were not included in the Act. The position taken by the Minister at the time was based on the legal advice from the Attorney General.

Under the current Act all sanctions are purely financial in nature. The Act simply sets down the maximum fines that may be applied. No minimum fine is set and it is purely a matter for a judge, taking into account the specific case, to determine the actual fine levied. The Act also applied for the first time a scaled approach to setting maximum fines whereby the maximum fines set for smaller vessels are less than for larger vessels. In that respect the 2006 Act sought to guarantee a degree of proportionality for fines based on vessel size, a factor which did not exist in the previous legislation.

On foot of the recent Court of Auditors report on fisheries control the Commission is proposing wide-ranging proposals to reform and update the EU fisheries control framework and it is likely that the issue of harmonised sanctions will be considered in that light. In addition, the recent Commission proposal on illegal, unregulated, unreported fishing proposes a degree of harmonisation of sanctions for fisheries offences. This approach may have significant implications for the application of administrative sanctions in Ireland for fishery offences.

At that time, as Deputy Sheehan hinted, I asked my Department to review the operation of sanctions under the Sea-Fisheries and Maritime Jurisdiction Act 2006 in light of experience since its enactment. Officials of my Department will be consulting, among others, industry representatives, the Sea Fisheries Protection Authority and the Office of the Attorney General in the course of their review. Invitations have been issued to the fishing industry representative organisations inviting them to meet with official groups to present views on this issue as soon as possible.

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