Fisheries board manager temporarily removed

THE manager of a regional fisheries board which has been the subject of a Garda investigation since 1995 has been removed temporarily from duty this week.

The Southern Regional Fisheries Board (SRFB) manager, Mr James Rogers, is understood to have been presented with a list of charges, to which he must respond before returning to work. One of the charges is understood to relate to evidence on safety procedures which he gave to an official inquiry.

The move by the Government's special commissioner, Mr Seamus Keating, follows the suspension over a year ago of two fishery inspectors with the Southern Regional Fisheries Board. The two inspectors, Mr Edward Haley and Mr Edward Casey, were remanded on continuing bail on charges of corruption last year and their case is due to be heard on June 30th.

In a separate case, an appeal by the State involving a member of the SRFB board, Mr James Doherty, is also awaiting a decision.

Controversy has surrounded the SRFB since 1994, when the board's former chairman, Mr Bill Lawlor, referred claims that local salmon fishermen had been victimised" by fishery inspection staff to the Garda Fraud Squad.

The southern board, based in Clonmel, Co Tipperary, is responsible for patrolling an 85 mile coastline from Killeen Bay, Co Wexford, to Ballycotton Quay, Co Cork, and associated inland waterways. One of the board's staff, Mr Michael Hickey, had also made claims about corruption in Waterford Circuit Court in December 1994.

An extensive investigation by a team of gardai from Dungarvan, directed by Insp Michael Blake, resulted in charges being levelled against the two inspectors, Mr Haley and Mr Casey. The two inspectors were suspended by the board in February 1996.

The Minister of State for the Marine, Mr Eamon Gilmore, asked for a consultancy report on the board's management, which was severely critical.

Following publication of the report by Mr Dermot Rochford, Mr Gilmore appointed the former Kerry and Galway county manager, Mr Seamus Keating, as commissioner to the Southern Board. Special legislation was found to be detective and amended, and Mr Keating's remit was renewed this year under the Fisheries (Commission) Bill, 1997.

The commissioner's appointment was welcomed at the time by the board manager, Mr Rogers, but he also took "grave exception" to the reference by the then Minister for the Marine, Mr Hugh Coveney, and the Minister of State, Mr Gilmore, to management deficiencies".

Mr Rogers also claimed that he, and not his board's former chairman had initiated the Garda investigation in the first place. He said he was confident that the allegations of corruption were untrue.