It is wrong to suggests that there is systematic criminality in the Irish fishing industry, write Lorcán Ó Cinnéide, Seán O'Donoghue and Jason Whooley
The Government and the public have been given a simple and admittedly effective message by Minister for the Marine Noel Dempsey and his senior officials about the Sea Fisheries and Maritime Jurisdiction Bill: Pass this Bill as we have now graciously amended it, or place the taxpayers of this State at risk of multi-million euro penalties from the EU.
Despite this official line, a considered and well informed debate has been engaged in - to their great credit - by most Opposition parties and some Fianna Fáil TDs on the Bill and the serious issues involved.
In response to this far more subtle debate which has raised very searching questions and been largely ignored in the media, a clever and very effective spin machine has been put to work which portrays the current legislation as vital because of "systematic criminality" in the fishing industry and castigates TDs for their irresponsible opposition.
Outputs from this campaign have appeared in this newspaper and others recently.
Are some fishermen profiting themselves from substantial ill-gotten gains? Notwithstanding the critical point that everyone is innocent until proven guilty, it does seem that, yes, there are people in that category.
What is the fishing industry saying should be done with them if they are convicted? Penalise them severely in accordance with the law. But let's be quite clear, however: they can be more than effectively dealt with under existing law if needs be.
The vast majority of Irish fishermen have not made €500,000 profits in the past 10 years combined, never mind in a year or a night as the more lurid tales have told. Nor can two instances of satellite monitoring tampering which have been widely referred to, be taken as a norm.
Is it being seriously suggested that thousands of fishermen - who presumably have the exact same values as any other group in Ireland - set out daily with criminal intent?
Are there many minor technical breaches of the laws in fishing? Yes. Are there genuine mistakes made by fishermen on occasion? Yes to that too. But these relatively minor offences cannot be seen as criminal in intent. Such breaches must also be put in the context of a set of Common Fishery Policy (CFP) rules and regulations which comprise literally thousands of pages which the EU itself recognises is far too complex to be fully implemented. The EU is currently engaged in a major project on simplification of Byzantine regulations. This, however, does not go far enough.
It is totally misleading to take what happens in Ireland totally out of context from what occurs throughout the EU. The debate so far on the Bill has exposed the fact that the Irish authorities have NO control on fishing levels of foreign fleets in Irish waters, for example.
In addition, serious and senior fisheries administrators, scientists and managers in most EU fishing countries - except Ireland, apparently - have come to recognise there is a massive EU-wide systems failure in the construction and implementation of the CFP and the need for fundamental reform. The responsibility for the present mess must be shared - yes by fishermen of all EU countries, but also by the EU Commission, member state governments, administrators, managers and scientists who are just as, if not more, culpable.
We must have a radical reform of the CFP, a system that does not work for anyone. Indeed, we would like to see the Irish Government, led by the Taoiseach, at the forefront of the demand for change which would only benefit Ireland and fish stocks. Despite what has been implied, the fishing industry is not opposed to the Sea Fisheries Bill to protect any fat-cat criminals. We deplore that this fact is being completely misrepresented. The health of fishing stocks is critical to the future of our industry.
We have consistently and clearly said in recent months that we must have dissuasive and effective penalties for offences. Serious or repeated offences should indeed be dealt with by criminal law. We would welcome a proper modernisation of the law, but the current proposals are a retrograde, not a progressive, step.
Is it unreasonable that penalties also be proportionate and that the system generally in force here in Ireland be consistent with what applies elsewhere in the EU? In this lies the crucial issues in the important debate currently under way.
We are calling for a system of graded sanctions. Call them administrative penalties, fixed penalties or whatever. These would be commensurate with the level of gravity, and would, on repeated offences, lead to higher penalties and ultimately the criminal courts. Such a system applies in most other EU states.
The UK government last week agreed to introduce administrative penalties following consultations.
The UK faces exactly the same set of issues, including EU sanctions, as Ireland. They certainly cannot be accused of being soft on crime. We simply cannot accept that it is not possible to do something similar here, if the will was there. This issue concerns all fishermen, large and small, because the present proposals seek to continue to deal with almost all fisheries offences as criminal cases.
We also believe that confiscation of catch and gear is not an appropriate automatic consequence of conviction in a Circuit Court. We believe it should be discretionary for a judge on hearing the circumstances.
Again, this is not a question of being soft. It is a matter of justice.
Why is this vital debate being shrouded in obfuscation? Whose interests are being served by not having proper informed dialogue on the Sea Fisheries Bill instead of the rubbish being currently peddled from some quarters? Why is the Government getting what seems to us to be highly inadequate advice on this matter? We are following carefully the intense and useful debate at committee stage in the Oireachtas. Let us all - fishing industry, Minister and Opposition - work to reach an agreed consensus on this Bill without further delay, and move onwards to the wider EU fisheries issues for Ireland.
• Lorcán Ó Cinnéide, (Irish Fish Producers Organistion), Seán O'Donoghue (Killybegs Fisheries Organisation) and Jason Whooley (Irish South and West Fish Producers Organisation)