TDs and senators have expressed serious concern at the situation of former beam trawler owner CJ Gaffney during a hearing on the issue this week by the Oireachtas fisheries and maritime affairs committee.
Flooding and traffic disruption on the east coast due to Storm Chandra meant that neither Mr Gaffney, from Arklow, Co Wicklow, nor several TDs who are very familiar with his case were able to make the meeting in Leinster House.
However, Mr Gaffney was permitted to give his submission to the committee by mobile phone from his car.
As previously reported by Afloat, Mr Gaffney is at a considerable loss after a German-registered beam trawler he bought in 2007 was found to be unstable and unsafe.
The vessel named Mary Kate was found to be 15-20 tonnes heavier than recorded in the German registration and this compromised its stability.
Committee members were told that Mr Gaffney discovered the stability issue himself when the vessel nearly capsized.
However, an insurance payout was refused, and he was time-barred from taking legal action against the sellers and the German registration authority.
He was also unable to avail of an Irish decommissioning scheme.
The former beam trawler Mary Kate was bought in the Netherlands by CJ Gaffney of Arklow, Co Wicklow and his father in 2007
The Gaffneys later paid to lengthen the vessel, which remedied the stability fault, and Irish authorities re-certified the Mary Kate as safe to operate.
However, the Gaffneys were unable to return to fish due to delays in increasing the vessel’s capacity tonnage, and they decided to sell.
A buyer was found in Britain, but the British authorities refused registration due to the vessel’s previous issues. By 2012 the Gaffney family were left with significant losses and debt arising.
The vessel was repossessed and sold on by the banks, and the new owner fished it for several years off the south-west coast before having it accepted for the last decommissioning scheme.
Fine Gael TD for Wicklow/Wexford Brian Brennan said that he was not a member of the committee but had known the family for decades.
The Gaffneys had been “pushed from Europe back to Ireland”, it had “gone on too long” and the family needs support, he said.
Ms Mary Bertelsen, a former parliamentary assistant who became involved in supporting Mr Gaffney’s case, told the committee that on reading the case file it was obvious to a lay person that the vessel’s stability book was inaccurate.
“In essence it means that a boat is unseaworthy and is an accident waiting to happen,”she said..
“CJ and his naval architect Justin Delaney and [naval architect] Jakob Pinkster presented the case of the Mary Kate at EU level. There was palpable shock when the evidence was produced,”she said.
She said the failure of Ireland’s Marine Survey Office (MSO) to act in an “efficient and timely manner” contributed to the losses experienced by the Gaffney family .
The Gaffneys had bought and sold eight other beam trawlers, had an unblemished credit rating, and five generations of the family have given service to the RNLI,Ms Bertelsen said.
She said that a “life sentence” had been imposed on the family , but they did not want sympathy.
She said an investigation was required in Holland, Germany and Ireland to determine how the Mary Kate and a number of other vessels could be certified, in spite of having serious stability issues.
Naval architect Justin Delaney pointed out that Mr Gaffney and his crew nearly died, and this would have been a huge manslaughter case if that had occurred.
Mr Jakob Pinkster recalled how ships had set sail in the past with stability issues and “no one was acting on it” until maritime reformer Samuel Plimsoll became involved.
Mr Gaffney is a “good skipper who takes care of his crew and got a stability test, finds it unstable and that there are 20 tonnes that shouldn’t be there” and it was clear that the stability book was wrong, he said.
Mr Pinkster described their treatment as “disgraceful” and said they were perfectly correct in seeking compensation.
Fine Gael TD for Cavan-Monaghan David Maxwell said in his view Mr Gaffney “did everything by the book” and had experienced a “serious wrong”.
This was echoed by Social Democrats TD Jennifer Whitmore who couldn’t attend the meeting in person due to the storm.
The committee heard how Irish MEP Sean Kelly and several counterparts took up the case.
They were told that while the European Commission had no jurisdiction over the matter, as the vessel was just under 24 metres and outside Eu safety legislation, Ireland could use the European Fisheries Fund to compensate the owner.
The Commission “said that under the unique circumstances of the case that if Ireland made a request, it would be granted and that Ireland could easily create new legislation to facilitate this,”the MEPs’ letter said.
During questions for Government officials at the second part of the committee hearing, Mr Maxwell asked why Ireland could not compensate Mr Gaffney if the European Commission told MEPs it could in 2011.
Department of Agriculture, Food and Marine assistant secretary-general Sinead McSherry said that she was “unaware” of the letter in relation to the European Commission.
She said that EU fisheries funds in 2011 would not have been compatible with paying for lengthening of the vessel and there was no decommissioning programme at the time.
Aontú party senator Sarah O’Reilly noted that officials had said that safety was paramount.
“This family highlighted safety and you’re not encouraging people to come forward if they have an issue,” she said.
Senator O’Reilly asked if a redress fund could not be established for this case.
Ms McSherry said that any Exchequer funding must have regard to Eu-State rules and “we can’t establish a scheme for one person”.
Defending the role of the Department of Transport, Ms Noelle Waldron, head of the department’s maritime safety directorate, said that a surveyor had “spotted” at the end of December 2007 that there might be a stability issue and asked Mr Gaffney to have the vessel re-inclined.
Acting committee chair Pat the Cope Gallagher said he personally believed the committee should prepare a report on the issue and he would be recommending this.
Link to the meeting is here
