Reform of the Sea Fisheries Protection Authority (SFPA) needs to be “deep, real and meaningful”, the Irish Fish Processors and Exporters’ Association (IFPEA) has said.
IFPEA chief executive Brendan Byrne said that the Oireachtas Joint Committee on fisheries has a “key and critical role to play” in this.
Mr Byrne was addressing the committee yesterday (tues) on the issue of sea fisheries protection, along with IFPEA chairman Kenny Ward.
Mr Byrne said that there was no governance or oversight of the SFPA, and noted that Minister of State for Fisheries Timmy Dooley had committed to a review at a previous Oireachtas meeting.
Ireland is “over-regulating its fishing industry to death” while failing to inspect EU supertrawlers at sea, he told committee members.
Last year, the Belgian fleet overfished by 75000 kw days in Irish waters but no one did anything about it, he noted.
The view of the SFPA was that it was a matter for the competency of the Belgian authorities, he said.
“We need to get real about why stocks are diminishing in Irish waters,” Mr Byrne said, stating that Irish boats were catching less than 10 per cent of fish landed and 90 per cent was being caught by other vessels.
“This is happening in plain sight and in real time, and it has been happening for years,” he said.
“There is one hell of a whale in this room, and we are dancing around it long enough,” he said.
Asked by Sinn Féin marine spokesman Pádraig MacLochlainn to explain the “overwhelming level of scrutiny” that Irish landings are subject to, Mr Ward said he believed Killybegs is “probably the most over-regulated port in the world for fishing vessels”.
He outlined some 15 steps from the time a vessel hails the port while at sea to when the fish is brought to a factory.
This includes a transport document that must be submitted electronically by the driver of a truck for every single load before the lorry leaves the pier.
“Bear in mind, we are only 500 metres from the quay to the factory,” he explained.
He described the level of CCTV surveillance, which is live-beamed 24 hours to the SFPA office, and the detailed requirements for other documentation ranging from a by-catch weigh sampling record to an official pelagic weighing record, completion of an official sales note within 24 hours of landing and submission of a monthly stock report.
Mr Ward said he did not believe there was the same level of surveillance in ports he had visited in Denmark, France and Spain.
“We have Dutch-registered freezer trawlers with no scales, no cameras, no observers, no sampling…yet we in Killybegs have all this regulation…for us that is just mind boggling,” he said.
Mr MacLochlainn confirmed he had visited Killybegs and the level of CCTV surveillance was such that it compared to visiting old prisons after the conflict in the North, such as Long Kesh.
“I challenge anybody to tell me if any industry in Ireland would tolerate that level of scrutiny of their practices, and it completely interferes with the efficiency of companies – seafood companies that are struggling to survive,” Mr MacLochlainn said.
“The key point that stands out…that does not happen in other European harbours,” he said.
“These floating factories face none of this,” he said.
Mr Byrne said that Dutch supertrawlers have twice the quota for blue whiting of Ireland. He said that apart from one boarding last year of such a vessel, the last such boarding had been in 2014.
“These vessels are too big to board – there is a fear of boarding,” he said.
“There is a complete imbalance in how we are applying the rules of the Common Fisheries Policy, and it has been that way forever and a day,” he said.
Mr Ward said it was nigh on impossible to attract vessels into Killybegs harbour as every infringement was treated as a criminal offence.
He said in any other jurisdiction it would be treated as an administrative sanction with a fine.
