An Oireachtas committee has called for an Ombudsman to be appointed to consider complaints and to interrogate the effectiveness of the Sea Fisheries Protection Authority (SFPA).
It also calls for an “immediate assessment” to be conducted at the various fishery harbour centres across the State as “we are concerned that unfair and disproportionate application of regulations are being applied by the SFPA in some locations”.
The Oireachtas fisheries committee report says that “the social contract is so strained and broken between the industry and [fisheries related] agencies and the Department of the Marine that” a reset and significant rebuilding of relationships is required”, it says.
The committee report calls on the Minister for the Marine to review the sea-fisheries protection enforcement framework as applied to non-Irish vessels to ensure “high standards of enforcement are applied”.
It says that a forthcoming legislative review should encompass fishing industry representation, and should consolidate legislation, statutory instruments, and other regulations.
The report calls for the axing of a dual sanction regime whereby both criminal and administrative sanctions can be applied to the same offence.
It says the SFPA should be afforded discretion to apply non-criminal penalties to misdemeanours and marginal or accidental breaches.
It also says the role of the Sea-Fisheries Protection Consultative Committee should be strengthened , with “meaningful two-way consultation”.
The report was compiled after four hearings by the committee on the SFPA in which it heard testimony from industry and environmental groups, along with the agency and Minister of State for the Marine Timmy Dooley.
Mr Dooley has committed to an independent review of the 20 year-old Sea-Fisheries and Maritime Jurisdiction Act 2006 under which the SFPA operates.
The Irish Seafood Industry Alliance claimed in its testimony to the committee that Irish vessels face greater at-sea scrutiny than foreign vessels fishing in Irish waters.
The alliance called for greater transparency on how vessels are determined high-risk, and stated that “there is a level of heavy-handedness at times.”
In response to claims it was targeting Irish vessels, rather than all EU and non-EU vessels, the SFPA told the committee in 2024, 47.3% of inspections in Irish waters were of Irish vessels, versus 41.3% of other EU states and 11.4% of non-EU states.
The SFPA 2024 annual report noted an overall compliance rate of 80.7% (up from 77.4% in 2022) among fishing vessels inspected.
Its officers inspected 2,071 vessels in 2024 while they were landing catch, or 4.55% of the 45,511 total landings into Irish ports that year. This rises to 5% of the total when at-sea inspections are included, it says.
A total of 108 case files were opened that year, meaning 4.7% of inspections detected a
possible infringement.
The seafood industry alliance has also questioned the proportionality of the SFPA’s presence and activities in the context of the shrinking size of Ireland’s fishing fleet.
It noted that one sixth of fishing vessels are SFPA vessels, and that staff numbers have increased.
It claimed that Ireland has significantly more authorised sea fisheries protection officers than other member states.
As part of the report’s research, a study was made of the fisheries protection system in 17 other EU member states.
It said that “staffing and budget comparisons are difficult to make because in many cases the remit of other nation’s control agencies is broader than that of the SFPA”.
The SFPA currently has 191 staff, including 88 sea-fisheries protection officers and a further nine senior port officers.
The agency’s 2025 budget was €25.534m, rising slightly to €25.929 million for 2026.
The agency’s work ranges from fisheries enforcement to sanitary survey work for aquaculture sites, and inspection of seafood producers on behalf of the Food Safety Authority.
Oireachtas committee chairman and Sinn Féin TD for Waterford Conor McGuinness said that “while the Irish fishing and seafood industry readily support the need for a regulator to enforce Irish and EU laws related to sustainable fisheries, they have repeatedly expressed their serious concerns about how those laws are enforced”
He said the committee believes that “to restore confidence between the agencies of the State and the fisheries, aquaculture, and processing sector a new chapter of engagement, mutual rights and services, and accountability is driven by the Minister”.
Sinn Féin TD for Donegal Pádraig MacLochlainn, the committee’s rapporteur on sea-fisheries protection, said the committee had “listened to the voices of this industry and found their calls to be compelling and reasonable”.
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