Gamekeeper-turned-poacher. Mr Sean O'Donoghue, the senior civil servant who takes over one of the most influential jobs in the Irish fishing industry today, laughs at his new nickname and has his response already prepared.

"Isn't it great that the industry recognises that there is someone in a Government department that they can trust," he quips.

Regarded as an experienced tactician with years of EU fisheries negotiations behind him, Mr O'Donoghue is a civil engineering graduate from Clonkeen, Co Kerry, who joined the then Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry engineering division in 1981.

Six years later he assumed responsibility for the new Department of the Marine's management and control division and was closely involved in technical aspects and policy in relation to sea fisheries.

He has worked with several ministers for the marine, and attended many a late-night EU fisheries council in Brussels. In 1997, in a surprise move, he joined Bord Iascaigh Mhara (BIM) as fisheries development manager - one of the board's key areas of responsibility - and was one of the main architects of the Government's £70 million (€88.8 million) renewal programme for the whitefish fleet.

His latest career change has caused even greater surprise as he would have been regarded as a candidate for the post of Secretary of the Department he left behind. Some months back, he was head hunted by the Killybegs Fishermen's Organisation (KFO) when Mr Joey Murrin announced his intention to retire after 22 years. For the supertrawler skippers who have spearheaded the multimillion-pound mackerel fishery, it was an astute move.

Though he won't comment, it is understood that Mr O'Donoghue's salary is around £60,000. He will commute from his home in Dublin to Donegal. BIM has moved quickly to replace him, appointing Mr Michael Keatinge, a former deck officer with Irish Shipping, zoology lecturer and Marine Institute official, as his successor.

The Kerryman acknowledges that he has "a hard act to follow" in Donegal. "I am standing on the shoulders of giants," Mr O'Donoghue says. "Joey Murrin has laid a tremendous foundation which I intend to build on and take the organisation into a new era."

Tributes will be paid to the best known face in the industry at a special function in Mr Murrin's honour in Killybegs on Friday night.

That "new era" may include fishermen's support for radical measures to protect the marine environment. Four species - cod, haddock, hake and monkfish - among the whitefish stocks are in such trouble that the only option would appear to be closed areas, increased net mesh sizes, backed up by a marine version of the agricultural rural environmental protection schemes (REPS), he says.

"People forget that the whitefish sector is the backbone of Killybegs. The recent EU-backed cod recovery programme in the Irish Sea worked very well," Mr O'Donoghue says. "I'd like to see the same happening in the northwest, but with financial supports for the skippers involved."

The concept has already been considered by the Government's review group on the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), chaired by former IDA boss, Mr Padraic White, and this is the subject of a report to be published this week. On the issue of fleet size, Mr O'Donoghue says that the KFO will be "putting forward the basic principle that those who do the greatest damage take the hardest hits". The Irish fleet is only 3 per cent of the EU total and should not be cut further, in his view.

Far more pressing, however, is the problem of staffing. "There is a serious crew problem at the moment, which is a consequence of our economy," he says. A training and employment task force established by the previous marine minister has taken some time to get moving, but he hopes that proposals will be formulated as a matter of urgency.

Fuel is an issue, and the industry cannot sustain the current cost of 34 pence a litre. The KFO has been working with the Minister on proposals for the forthcoming Budget which will be designed to act as a cushion, including tax incentives.

Mr O'Donoghue is confident that the industry will present a united front on this issue, and that old rivalries will be laid to rest. He expects there will be a similarly united front between State and industry at EU level - and such is his expertise that politicians will rely heavily on him. "I'll be out there supporting the Minister," Mr O'Donoghue says confidently. "Yes, there will be a different dynamic. I won't be a functionnaire any more."

But, he adds, with a trace of a wink, "I do know what a functionnaire does."