Ireland’s leading maritime newspaper covering the Coastal, Fishing and Maritime Communities

MARINE TIMES NEWS April 14th:
‘Factory’ Ships Fishing Off Ireland Have Little Inspection

“The Government seems to be utterly blind to what is being caught in Irish waters by factory vessels.”

That was the comment of the Chairman of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Fisheries and Maritime Affairs today when it was revealed at a third hearing with the Sea Fisheries Protection Authority that there is little information available about ‘factory’ vessels fishing off Ireland.

The Sea Fisheries Protection Authority was before the Committee, composed of TDs and Senators, for another meeting about its operations.

During the meeting it became known that there is little inspection of what these vessels catch, not a lot of knowledge or information about how they process catches, where their catches are landed and about inspections of their landings.

SFPA officials told the Committee that they had no ‘eyes only’ inspections of these landings and that, so far this year, there have been no inspections at sea of the operations of these vessels.

A new vessel was launched recently, according to Sinn Fein Spokesman on Fishing, Padraig MacLochlainn. He told the Committee it was “huge,” with capacity equal to that combined of several Irish processing factories

This year, so far, there has not been a single inspection of any of these vessels. the SFPA acknowledged, but pointed out how difficult sea conditions have been. The Naval Service has reduced inspections at sea because of its operational difficulties. The SFPA said the European Fisheries Control Agency was depended upon for inspections. Outside 12 miles, waters were considered ‘European.’ There were four inspections last year, the Committee was told. They said that information is exchanged between national control agencies in the EU at regular meetings.

Today’s meeting was described as into “Sea Fisheries Protection Authority Issues, including the accountability framework of the SFPA and SFPA decision-making procedures for its enforcement activities.” It was the third appearance of the SFPA at the Committee which has also met with Marine Minister Timmy Dooley about the Authority, who told it hat he would carry out a review of the legislation which established it, beginning in June.

Today’s session again ranged over operational enforcement activities of the State-established agency and concern expressed by TDS and Senators that there is “criminalisation of fishermen” compared to other European Member States. SFPA officials responded that there were no alternatives available under existing legislation other than through recommendations of prosecutions which had to be made to the DPP.

The meeting was fractious at times, with Committee members complaining they had not got answers, which was denied by the SFPA Chairman, Paschal Hayes.

The Committee Chairman, Conor McGuinness, said that it was not satisfactory that the SFPA was again telling the Committee it did not have figures sought about issues such as ‘factory ships’ in Irish waters. “Utterly unsatisfactory, frustrating,” he said.

The SFPA responded that it would like to do more inspections but was limited by resources.

Deputy Pat ‘The Cope’ Gallagher expressed particular anger about the closure of landings at Burtonport on Saturday by the SFPA and described it as damaging economically to the community, He said the costs could not be too much when the SFPA could pay for communications training before it attended the meeting of the Committee.

The SFPA told him it lacked the resources to provide inspection at Burtonport on Saturdays and landings did not justify it.

“How could you know when you don’t have it open,” Deputy Gallagher replied.

The SFPA said it had spent over €3,000 on communications training before attending the Committee hearing.

............................................................................................................................................................................

In our April edition -

When Guessing Wrong Can Get You a Criminal Record! What Will Be Done with the SFPA?; Does The Government Want Inshore Fishing? The Cost Of Fishing Is Becoming Unsustainable; Fuel Cost Rises Catastrophic for Fishing Fleet - Fishermen forgotten by Government as fuel cost crisis hammers industry; €32m Agreement Reflects Sustained Lobbying ....

.... all of this plus so much more in our April issue

Puchase a single issue download from this link for just €2 - Order here

Postal subscriptions available at this link - Order here

Follow the Marine Times Newspaper channel on WhatsApp: Click here

............................................................................................................................................................................

The Marine Times Newspaper is Ireland’s leading maritime newspaper covering the Coastal, Fishing and Maritime Communities. We publish a monthly newspaper available in all good shops but also provide additional topical news from around our coast free on our website - help keep it free by buying us a cheap old cup of coffee by clicking on the image above