Results 1-20 of 33 for sfpa segment:7937747

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Pre-Legislative Scrutiny of the Sea-Fisheries (Amendment) Bill, 2021: Discussion (Resumed) (13 May 2021)

Charlie McConalogue: ...matter, legally, which the Deputy will be aware of as a legislator, under the Sea-Fisheries and Maritime Jurisdiction Act 2006, which sets out where everything stands on this and designates the SFPA as the legally competent authority for all operational matters as to the control of these regulations. Resourcing of the SFPA, national policy, and the provision of resources, is a matter...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Pre-Legislative Scrutiny of the Sea-Fisheries (Amendment) Bill, 2021: Discussion (Resumed) (13 May 2021)

Charlie McConalogue: -----wherever that weighing takes place. Where the SFPA is conducting a controlled weighing, the SFPA carries that out.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Pre-Legislative Scrutiny of the Sea-Fisheries (Amendment) Bill, 2021: Discussion (Resumed) (13 May 2021)

Charlie McConalogue: ...As regards weighing and all those operational matters, legally I am precluded from getting into the middle of that. Legally, that is the job of the committee, rather than my job as Minister. The SFPA reports on those matters to, and engages on matters pertinent to it, with the appropriate committees of the Houses of the Oireachtas, not with the Minister. The law prevents me being...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Pre-Legislative Scrutiny of the Sea-Fisheries (Amendment) Bill, 2021: Discussion (Resumed) (13 May 2021)

Charlie McConalogue: As Minister, I have responsibility for policy. I also have responsibility to resource the SFPA appropriately for the important job it needs to carry out. Section 68 of the Sea-Fisheries and Maritime Jurisdiction Act 2006 very clearly outlines that the authority, the SFPA, shall "whenever required by the Committee of Dáil Éireann established under the Standing Orders of Dáil...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Pre-Legislative Scrutiny of the Sea-Fisheries (Amendment) Bill, 2021: Discussion (Resumed) (13 May 2021)

Charlie McConalogue: ...around this are set by the European Commission and, under the Common Fisheries Policy, there is an obligation on each member state, through the relevant competent authorities, in our case the SFPA, to apply those regulations. We are legally obliged to comply with them under the Common Fisheries Policy and every member state must do the same. The control plan was put in place in 2012...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Pre-Legislative Scrutiny of the Sea-Fisheries (Amendment) Bill, 2021: Discussion (Resumed) (13 May 2021)

Verona Murphy: With due respect to the Minister, it is the competent authority but this is something that relates to Ireland. This report did not go back to the SFPA, it came back to the Irish Government. Is it fair to say that it is actually up to the Minister to fund the SFPA and to put the control mechanism in place? The SFPA is already in receipt of millions of euros. In the past two years it has...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Pre-Legislative Scrutiny of the Sea-Fisheries (Amendment) Bill, 2021: Discussion (Resumed) (13 May 2021)

Charlie McConalogue: The SFPA is communicating and engaging closely on a daily basis with fishers and processors in respect of the management of the current situation. The Deputy should note that until such time as the EU Commission revoked the control plan, there was no such decision. That meant the SFPA had to respond and the impact that had in respect of fishers on the ground is relevant. Until such time as...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Pre-Legislative Scrutiny of the Sea-Fisheries (Amendment) Bill, 2021: Discussion (Resumed) (13 May 2021)

Verona Murphy: ..., as the Minister has said several times. We have an enforcement agency that is not answerable to him; it is answerable to a committee. What mechanism can the Minister put in place to ensure that the SFPA does not land us in this scenario again? Apart from anything else, there is very little evidence to support what the EU has said, except that that evidence is based on what has been...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Pre-Legislative Scrutiny of the Sea-Fisheries (Amendment) Bill, 2021: Discussion (Resumed) (13 May 2021)

Charlie McConalogue: As the Deputy knows, I cannot get into the ins and outs of the weighing and operational matters because those are matters for the SFPA. The committee had an engagement with the SFPA this week and it is open to the committee to have a more detailed engagement with the authority on this matter. Our challenge is that the European Commission is the overall authority for setting regulations and...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Pre-Legislative Scrutiny of the Sea-Fisheries (Amendment) Bill, 2021: Discussion (Resumed) (13 May 2021)

Michael Collins: I have a few more questions I want to ask the Minister. I have listened closely for the past hour and a half, or however long it has been. There is an awful lot of talk that the SFPA is to blame, that the task force is to blame, that the task force going to work on this, or that the SFPA will bring things forward. Nobody is making decisions. As I have said, it now looks as though...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Pre-Legislative Scrutiny of the Sea-Fisheries (Amendment) Bill, 2021: Discussion (Resumed) (13 May 2021)

Charlie McConalogue: ...to revoke the control plan, and that is the position it was in. The Commission's final decision would have been communicated to us at the same time as the Sea-Fisheries Protection Authority, SFPA. Obviously, that was a Commission decision and not one which the SFPA would have decided on. It was one which followed on from administrative inquiry the Commission carried out. The main...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Pre-Legislative Scrutiny of the Sea-Fisheries (Amendment) Bill, 2021: Discussion (Resumed) (13 May 2021)

Christopher O'Sullivan: ...the decision of the Commission on the revocation of the control plan. He has explained that the Bill does not allow him to do that. What can he do? Earlier this week representatives of the SFPA informed the committee that it would be a minimum of two months before it could introduce a new control plan. Surely the Department has a role to intervene. At the moment the piers do not have...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Pre-Legislative Scrutiny of the Sea-Fisheries (Amendment) Bill, 2021: Discussion (Resumed) (13 May 2021)

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn: ...of seals around the weighing device to prevent it from being tampered with, there are CCTV cameras observing all the fish as they are weighed in real time and those monitors feed directly to the SFPA offices. That is a remarkable level of oversight. Then, at the back end of the factory, one can see packages with 20 kg of fish, with 60 on each trolley, weighing 1.2 tonnes. One can go...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Pre-Legislative Scrutiny of the Sea-Fisheries (Amendment) Bill, 2021: Discussion (Resumed) (13 May 2021)

Charlie McConalogue: That would be an operational matter for the Sea Fisheries Protection Authority, SFPA, which is the competent authority there.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Pre-Legislative Scrutiny of the Sea-Fisheries (Amendment) Bill, 2021: Discussion (Resumed) (13 May 2021)

Verona Murphy: No. I ask the Minister to go back for a minute. Is the Minister saying that the SFPA is in charge of enforcement?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Pre-Legislative Scrutiny of the Sea-Fisheries (Amendment) Bill, 2021: Discussion (Resumed) (13 May 2021)

Verona Murphy: To whom is the SFPA answerable?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Pre-Legislative Scrutiny of the Sea-Fisheries (Amendment) Bill, 2021: Discussion (Resumed) (13 May 2021)

Charlie McConalogue: It is an independent authority under law. It is answerable to this committee, the Oireachtas. I know this committee had a meeting with representatives of the SFPA earlier this week. It is directly accountable to the Oireachtas and to committees of the Oireachtas.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Pre-Legislative Scrutiny of the Sea-Fisheries (Amendment) Bill, 2021: Discussion (Resumed) (13 May 2021)

Verona Murphy: On that basis, was the report issued from Europe to the SFPA?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Pre-Legislative Scrutiny of the Sea-Fisheries (Amendment) Bill, 2021: Discussion (Resumed) (13 May 2021)

Verona Murphy: However, it is not carrying out infringement proceedings against the SFPA, is it?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Pre-Legislative Scrutiny of the Sea-Fisheries (Amendment) Bill, 2021: Discussion (Resumed) (13 May 2021)

Charlie McConalogue: The administrative inquiry is against Ireland, as a member state. I, as Minister, have policy responsibility. The SFPA is the competent authority for control.