John Perry (Sligo-North Leitrim, Fine Gael)

I congratulate my Fine Gael Party colleagues, Deputies Jim O'Keeffe and Creed, for bringing forward this legislation. The Bill has been drafted to deal in a practical and sensible manner with sea fisheries offences. A fixed penalty system is the appropriate enforcement response to minor breaches of sea fisheries law. Fisheries offences in Ireland are prosecuted under section 28 of the Sea-Fisheries and Maritime Jurisdiction Act 2006. The Act provides for stiff maximum penalties to be imposed for fisheries offences. Under its terms, almost all offences require the imposition of extremely serious penalties, even for non-serious offences.

Under the Common Fisheries Policy, there is a legal requirement that Ireland enforce an effective system of sanctions for dealing with breaches of Community law. There is sound scientific evidence showing that commercial fishing stocks in Irish waters are at historically low levels and that improved fisheries enforcement and control measures are required to ensure particular fish stocks do not collapse. During the Second Stage debate on the Sea-Fisheries and Maritime Jurisdiction Act 2006 I accepted the necessity for stiff penalties to control serious quota and environmental breaches. On the other hand, I strongly argued that the use of criminal procedures and penalties to control even minor breaches of technical regulations was the wrong way to go in respect of minor and technical offences.

This Bill recognises that serious quota breaches and environmental offences are appropriate targets for the full rigour of fisheries enforcement and no change in these tough enforcement provisions is proposed. The Sea-Fisheries Protection Authority indicated in its testimony in July 2009 before the Joint Committee on Agriculture, Fisheries and Food that there had been a huge shift towards compliance by the commercial fishing industry. The authority also confirmed that it would welcome the introduction of a system of administrative sanctions, as recommended by the European Commission. It is clear from the testimony of the authority that its preferred compliance strategy is to have graded steps towards enforcement and prosecution, ranging from warning letters, administration sanctions and penalty points to criminal penalties for the most serious offences.

The commercial fishing industry has responded in a significant and comprehensive way to the quota and environmental requirements of the Common Fisheries Policy. It is now time for the Government to respond in a sensible and constructive way to the new situation. The Fine Gael Bill is a timely and reasonable response to the new situation in the commercial fishing industry. It would provide a mechanism for keeping minor or technical infractions out of the courts. It would create a process to establish a fixed penalty approach to certain offences. This would have several advantages, including the promotion of a greater culture of compliance, reduced administrative costs as offences would be dealt with by administrative measures rather than through the courts and the faster conclusion of cases. It is high time the Government responded to the claim by the commercial sea fishermen and their representative bodies that they have been unfairly targeted with criminal penalties for minor breaches of fishing protection regulations. The current system of criminal penalties has left fishermen feeling marginalised and demoralised. They believe they are the only group in society unfairly targeted with serious penalties for minor offences.

The Fine Gael Bill provides a way out of the Government's cul-de-sac approach. The matter has been debated for long enough. My good friend Deputy P.J. Sheehan has been the greatest advocate of the Bill's approach. I ask the Minister to resolve a serious concern for coastal communities by taking on board the Fine Gael Bill to introduce administrative sanctions for minor fishing offences.

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