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

I thank the 22 Members of the House who have contributed to this brief debate on my Bill.

"Criminal penalties ... should be reserved for persistent and extreme 'criminal' behaviour. For the rest, the imposition of administrative penalties ... would be a sufficient deterrent." Those are not my words, but the words of the UK Prime Minister's Strategy Unit's 2004 report. Following that report, the UK introduced a Bill exactly along the lines of my Bill, and regulations to underpin it. It is now in operation in the three jurisdictions of the UK.

No research has taken place here, except the research we on the Opposition side of the House have conducted. The Government's opposition to the Bill is totally illogical and borders on the bizarre. The Government continues its stubborn opposition to any question of administrative sanctions in the face of the incontrovertible evidence that such a system operates successfully in every other EU member state. That leaves us as the odd man out in Europe, with our total reliance on punitive criminal penalties for even the most minor offences.

According to the Government, the EU Commission is wrong in favouring administrative sanctions, and so is the Sea-Fisheries Protection Authority, even though it is charged with enforcement of fishery law. The Government by implication condemns the authorities in England and Wales, Marine Scotland and our neighbours in Northern Ireland, which have all recently introduced the approach I am advocating. The Minister seems to be saying that we should not confuse him with the facts, as his mind is made up.

The Minister's opposition to the Bill seems to be based on a series of fundamental misapprehensions. Despite the incontrovertible evidence to the contrary, he insists on applying a simplistic analysis to a nuanced and seriously researched legislative initiative.

The opposition by Members on the Government benches - such as it is - seems predicated on the same two faulty assumptions that have been the bedrock of Government opposition since 2004. Those articles of faith, repeated in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, are further muddled by a seeming inability to grasp how the Bill would operate in practice. The Members opposite have attempted to paint the Bill as a pirate's charter and a carte blanche for unscrupulous fishermen to land whatever they wish while getting off with a €1,000 fine. That view is sustainable only by a wilful ignorance of the Bill's contents and a refusal to view it as a part of a sophisticated tripartite sanctions approach.

I will address the Minister's objections. The Minister has now finally accepted that there is no necessary constitutional impediment to the introduction of administrative sanctions, which was the defence used in the past. However, he continues to hove to the belief that they would be unconstitutional in the case of fisheries offences - as if what is okay on land is not okay at sea.

The Minister's argument is based on the utterly disproportionate fines - even for minor offences - in his own Bill and the 2006 Act. He uses a circular argument to say that it would therefore be impossible to introduce administrative sanctions for those minor offences. That is the most ridiculous argument of all time.

Second, it is precisely those gross fines and forfeitures for minor offences that would be unnecessary under this Bill. They would be dealt with expeditiously in a different way. The point of the Bill is that the vast swathe of technical offences will be dealt with by administrative sanction, thus rendering the expensive, inefficient, disproportionate and swingeing forfeiture provisions that the Minister hides behind unnecessary in the vast majority of cases. That is exactly the same way in which we enforce our health and safety regulations and road traffic regulations. I have yet to hear a single, sensible, domestic, legal and logical argument to the Bill.

The Minister pretends that the European Commission requires us to follow his approach, conveniently ignoring the fact that every report from the European Commission and the European Parliament tells us that administrative sanctions are the way forward. I will quote from a 2001 European Commission report - the Minister should take a look at it - on the implementation of the CFP. It states "administrative sanctions appear to have a number of advantages over criminal sanctions", and describes them as the way forward. I ask why this Government is standing on its own and saying it has the only answer to the problem of fisheries offence enforcement.

The European Commission has long accepted that administrative sanctions, backed by criminal penalties for persistent or serious offenders - which I am all for - is by far the most effective way to enforce fisheries legislation. The Minister should ask why that system has been introduced in the UK, and in Northern Ireland a couple of years ago. Is he saying they were wrong, or deliberately trying to damage the fisheries? That is partly the argument I am hearing from the Government side of the House.

It is clear that those jurisdictions have examined and consulted on the situation, and come up with the best possible process. I ask the Minister why we are not doing that here. We are going back to the same old tired ridiculous arguments that have no substance whatsoever.

We now come to the nub of the Minister's opposition. It pains me when I hear it, because it is so wilfully wrong. It is wrong to argue that the Bill will somehow provide rogue fishermen with a licence to do what they will while paying a €1,000 fine, resulting in the degradation of Ireland's fish stocks. That objection is based not on anything in the Bill, but on a fantasy bill.

We currently have a situation whereby the Naval Service can issue warning letters that have absolutely zero prosecutorial effect. The Minister seems to think the SFPA has the same authority, but it does not have any legal authority to do that. It has one authority, which is to come in with a blunderbuss approach for even the most minor offences.

I have examined the regulations in other countries and here in Ireland. Such offences include infringements on twine thickness, trailing of lures, buoyage, flagging of seine nets and marking of vessels. The only way the SFPA can insist on enforcing those regulations is to bring the offenders to court. That is the most ridiculous situation of all time. The end result is that very often nothing is done, and the fishermen and the SFPA know that.

Even worse, an attitude has developed among some fishermen that they might as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb. If a fisherman is going to be prosecuted for being 4 kg over the quota, as happened in Donegal recently, he may as well have 400 kg on board. That is not the way to properly enforce regulations. It leads to the development of a poisonous relationship between the decent people trying to do their job in the SFPA and the decent people on the other side, the fishermen.

The SFPA wants a better arrangement. It wants a situation - as it said in evidence before the Oireachtas committee - in which it can operate on the basis of guidance, advice and pressure, using minor penalties like the traffic warden or the people who issue penalty notices for speeding. It wants to use the heavy weaponry for serious offences. That is how the system operates in every other country - I ask the Minister why it cannot operate here.

The Minister should recognise that the 2006 Act is neither proportionate nor effective in preserving our fish stocks. I ask why we are following this route and ignoring what is happening in every other country in the EU.

In Fine Gael's approach, the role of the Naval Service and the residual jurisdiction of the courts will be retained. The median swathe of technical regulation that controls every aspect of gear and stowage on board ship will be dealt with in an efficient, effective fashion.

I ask the Minister to go back to the drawing board and consider a sensible approach. That should be carefully approached and argued, and presented in a reasonable fashion. I say that for no reason other than that I want a better system that everyone will buy into and that every other country supports.

The Government stands alone on the issue. The approach in the Bill is approved by every other party in the House and - as I know from private discussions, which I cannot disclose - by many of the Minister's colleagues. It is approved by the European Parliament and the European Commission, and by every other member state in the EU. It is approved by the Sea-Fisheries Protection Authority and - last but not least - by the fishermen. I ask the Government to join the people who approved this approach and introduce the kind of system that operates and works effectively in every other country in the European Union. It can do so by supporting this Bill.

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