Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 1:

In page 11, line 23, after “detects” to insert “, beyond a reasonable doubt,”.

This amendment is about a sea infringement being beyond reasonable doubt to provide fairness and equality for fishers under the law and the Constitution, otherwise, the Government will create a new and dangerous precedent for treating fishers as second-class citizens under the law. Equally, this would give power to a fisheries office to make judgment on the balance of probability or, in other words, on a 50.1% probability, that a potential infringement action occurred.

The area is a key concern for fishermen and fisherwomen. If this amendment was accepted, at the very least, the legislation would become fair. The application of penalty points on a licence means a criminal sanction and will have very serious implications for masses of fishing boats. Importantly, Irish law recognises two principal standards of proof. The criminal test is that a charge must be beyond reasonable doubt, while civil cases are decided on the balance of probabilities.

The meaning of these terms would seem obvious to anyone trained in basic statistics science. In terms of the confidence intervals, one is inclined to accept that the probability it is true exceeds 95%. Beyond reasonable doubt appears to be a claim there is a high probability that the defendant's guilt is true. The criminal convictions require a higher standard than the scientific norm. Some 99% or even 99.9% confidence is required for one to be thrown in jail or to have a criminal conviction recorded against one's name, whereas the phrase "on the balance of probability" surely means that the probability the claim is well founded exceeds 50%. However, brief conversations with experienced lawyers establish they do not interpret the terms in these ways.

One famous illustration supposes one is knocked down by a bus which one did not see and that is why one was knocked down. Company A operates more than half the buses in the town and in the absence of other evidence, the probability one's injuries were caused by a bus belonging to company A is more than one half, but no court would determine that company A was liable on that basis. A court approaches the issues in a different way. One must tell us a story about oneself and the bus.

Legal reasoning uses a narrative rather than a probabilistic approach and when the courts are faced with probabilistic reasoning, the result is often a damaging muddle, such as the flawed testimony in the UK of Sir Roy Meadow on child deaths that led courts to wrongfully convict grieving parents of murdering children. That clarifies our amendment No. 1 on a sea infringement being beyond reasonable doubt. The whole Bill, to be honest, stinks to the high heavens. It is anti-fishing and I will certainly oppose it.

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