Jim O'Keeffe (Cork South West, Fine Gael)

This is an island nation with more than 2,000 vessels on the sea fishing boat register. About 5,000 fishermen are employed in the fishing fleet with a further 4,000 employed in fish processing and ancillary activities. Our coastal communities are very dependent on the fishing sector.

The sea fisheries (amendment) Bill, which I circulated last year, remained on the Order Paper for quite a while on foot of consultation and discussion. It is one that I hope the Government will support. It is designed to deal with a long-standing grievance of the fishing community where Ireland is now the only maritime jurisdiction within the European Union without a system of administrative sanctions for some fishery offences. The Bill is designed to change that and establish a much improved enforcement mechanism in relation to less serious fisheries infractions, promote a greater culture of compliance and reduce administrative and other costs for the Sea-Fisheries Protection Authority and fishermen alike.

I want to make it clear that neither I nor Fine Gael has any interest in introducing a pirate's charter in relation to serious quota and environmental breaches. These are, and will continue to be, dealt with by the courts. Those involved in cowboy activities can face the full rigours of the law as far as I am concerned and I have no sympathy for them. However, it has been the experience of every maritime power in Europe that criminal sanctions are not an efficient or effective way of encouraging compliance with the myriad of technical regulations that govern every aspect of life at sea. I recall when I launched this Bill with the party leader, Deputy Enda Kenny, in Castletownbere, a point made by local councillor, Noel Harrington, which I thought was very apt. He said that nowadays many fishermen believed they should have a barrister with them in the wheel house when they put to sea to enable them to comply with all the technical regulations or to advise them thereon.

The scheme of this Bill is to preserve the ability of the Naval Service to issue warning notices for suspect behaviour at one end of the spectrum and to retain the jurisdiction of the courts at the other, while, in the meantime, introducing a median level of administrative sanctions to deal with the vast majority of fisheries offences that fall between these two extremes. The Bill introduces sanctions in the form of fixed penalty notices, up to a maximum of €1,000 for any one offence, for infractions of sea fisheries legislation which do not warrant or justify the very serious penalties envisaged in section 28 of the Sea Fisheries and Maritime Jurisdiction Act 2006. It provides that the Minister may introduce regulations which allow for the provision of fixed penalties for certain offences under the Sea Fisheries and Maritime Jurisdiction Act 2006. This provision is modelled on section 47(2) of the Maritime Safety Act 2005. The Bill in no way supplants the 2006 legislation. The fixed penalty notice system will thus complement rather than replace the system provided in the 2006 Act.

The response of the Government in the past to earlier proposals for administrative sanctions in relation to sea fisheries offences has always been that it would be unconstitutional to introduce such a regime. The Bill answers the constitutional argument by providing for an Irish system of administrative sanctions using precedents that have withstood constitutional challenge over the years. It will be difficult for a fisherman or indeed anybody else to understand or accept that a fixed penalty notice regime can apply on land but not at sea. I cannot see how it could possibly apply on the land but not on our coastal waters and I am interested in any argument that may be put forward in support of that. Quite frankly, I cannot believe such an argument exists.

It is clear from precedents that on the spot fines have a long and hallowed history in the Irish legislative armoury. Legislation and secondary legislation can impose administrative sanctions on misusers of quad bikes in the Wicklow mountains, boat captains on the Shannon, restaurant owners the length and breadth of the country and every single man and woman with a driving licence. They were provided for almost 50 years ago in the Road Traffic Act 1961 and as recently as 2005 in the Safety Health and Welfare at Work Act. What I am now proposing is a system which is well within the four corners of what has been ratified by the Supreme Court and constitutionally upheld time and again. It seems extraordinary that the Government can consistently state that administrative sanctions are unconstitutional when fishing is involved, yet encourage their use in relation to road traffic offences at the same time.

A regime of administrative sanctions which utilises monetary fines with a residual right of appeal to the District Court has consistently been held to be within the ambit of the derogation allowed under Article 37.1 of the Constitution. If Article 34 of the Constitution is quoted, which provides that justice must be administered in a court, the answer in relation to the system I am proposing is Article 37, which provides for precisely this type of system and regime. With regard to the maximum allowable amount, the Safety Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005 provides a legislative example of a €1,000 fine that is imposed as an administrative penalty. Once that figure is not breached for any one fine, the precedents of the High Court indicate that it is constitutionally irrelevant that a vessel is fined for several different offences. A number of notices for certain minor technical offences could be issued at the same time and each would carry the fine as laid down in the regulation.

Once the principle is established and accepted, it is my belief that one could go further and introduce a penalty point regime as has been introduced under the Road Traffic Act. This is particularly relevant at present in relation to changes that are on the way at European Union level. Essentially, therefore, there does not appear to be anything unique to fisheries legislation that would make it so constitutionally distinct as to preclude the possibility of a scheme of on the spot fines bulwarked by the eventual imposition of a temporary suspension of fishing licence arising from a penalty point regime. That can happen to any of us if we are foolish or imprudent regularly on the roads. I understand from the Scottish authority, Marine Scotland, that this is the approach it intends to adopt in dealing with the new EU regulations when finalised. It intends that the fixed penalty notice regime will take on board the new EU approach.

The other argument used in the past was that somehow there was a European obligation that would make a system of administrative sanctions a legal impossibility. The argument was made in 2005, during discussions on the Sea Fisheries and Maritime Jurisdiction Bill, which eventually became law in 2006, that Ireland was precluded from introducing administrative sanctions by the European Commission as they would not contain the dissuasive element necessary to enforce the goals of the Common Fisheries Policy.

Such an argument conveniently ignores the views of the European Commission and is simply answered. The European Commission and the Parliament have consistently called for administrative sanctions to be introduced to enforce fisheries compliance, most recently in November 2009. As of 1 January 2010, Ireland is bound by a fisheries enforcement regulation drafted by the European Commission, which introduces a nascent system of Europe-wide administrative sanctions. It seems curious that the EU has, we are told, counselled against the introduction of administrative sanctions in Irish fisheries while at the same time drafting its own scheme. This Bill provides the State with the opportunity to draft an administrative scheme that will act in tandem with our coming European obligations. However, the main point regarding Europe and our inhibition about introducing a scheme of administrative sanctions in the fishing sector is that Ireland is the only member state that does not use such a scheme. In recent years, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and England and Wales have all introduced systems of administrative sanctions. Again, it seems unlikely that these schemes, which are working successfully as we speak, are being operated in defiance of European policy. That is not and has never been the case, and it is high time we stopped hiding behind non-existent European objections.

If the proposals in my Bill are not accepted we will be isolated as the odd man out in Europe. The aim of the amending Bill is to provide an improved enforcement mechanism which will allow for an appropriate fine to be imposed to punish less serious infractions. Such an approach will reduce the costs and uncertainty for both fishermen and sea fishery protection services. It will lead to faster conclusion of cases and the avoidance by fishermen of criminal records, with the associated stigma, for minor offences. Above all, it will promote a greater culture of compliance by allowing sea fisheries protection officers to levy on-the-spot fines for a wide variety of minor and technical fishery offences.

I am indebted to the Oireachtas Library and Research Service, particularly its senior law researcher, John Kenny BL, for the extensive examination it conducted on my behalf on the feasibility of introducing administrative sanctions into Irish fisheries legislation. What is clear from this research is that while the Common Fisheries Policy does indeed require a dissuasive national scheme, there is no reason this should exclude a complementary layer of administrative sanctions to control minor or technical infractions.

The attitude of the Sea-Fisheries Protection Authority, which I am glad to see represented here, is also very interesting. At the moment the SFPA is armed with a legislative blunderbuss and nothing else. It can prosecute or do nothing. When it prosecutes, even for minor offences, the fishing boat skipper must tie up his boat, sometimes for weeks on end. He faces loss of income, court costs, fines, possible suspension of his fishing licence, and even forfeiture of his catch and gear, which is mandatory for a conviction on indictment and for a second summary conviction. The deck-hands face loss of earnings and eventual loss of their jobs.

We should recall the evidence given last July by a representative of the SFPA to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. It states:

We have an enforcement strategy because we are empowered to enforce the legislation. If we had more powers, such as giving warning letters and administrative sanctions, we would start as we do in the area of food safety, by issuing advice, guidance, warning letters, administrative sanctions and prosecutions through the court. The compliance strategy would look at graded steps towards prosecution and the barriers to compliance on the other side of the equation and try to deal with them. That is where we are in terms of enforcement with our compliance strategy. At present we do not have the gift to issue administrative sanctions.

I would like to give the SFPA this gift.

Fishermen want administrative sanctions; those who are charged with enforcement - that is, the SFPA - want administrative sanctions; the European Union wants administrative sanctions; and the Supreme Court has clearly ratified the administrative sanction approach involved in a regime of fixed penalty notices. It is my belief that virtually all members of this House, particularly those from our coastal communities, are in favour of this approach. I therefore strongly urge the acceptance of the Fine Gael Bill, an empowering Bill which will allow the Minister - by the way, I congratulate the new Minister of State, Deputy Connick, on his appointment - to introduce regulations.

If we pass this Bill, as I believe we should, this will allow the various stakeholders, including Department officials, the SFPA, the fishing organisations and anyone else with an interest in this area, to work out a system of regulations to implement the Bill, as has happened successfully in England and Wales, Scotland and, most recently, Northern Ireland. There is absolutely no reason this cannot happen here. To make it happen, all I ask is for all parties to support this Bill.

I commend the Bill to the House.

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