It is sometimes stated that fact can often be stranger than fiction. That observation is true in this case. In 1995 a fisheries officer from the Southern Regional Fisheries Board was called to give evidence at Waterford Circuit Court. A drift net salmon fisherman from Helvick, County Waterford, was before the court on a charge of causing grievous bodily harm to the fisheries officer by striking him with an iron bar. When the fisheries officer entered the witness box, he told the court he could not blame the fisherman for doing what he had done because he and other fishermen living on the Waterford coast had been provoked for many years by a number of the officer's superiors. He stated that it was not surprising that one of them would take such drastic action. Understandably, the presiding judge nearly fell off the bench when the fisheries officer, who four years later is still suffering from the effects of the attack, stated that he did not blame his assailant for his actions which directly resulted from the activities of certain senior fisheries officers in the area.
For a period of 15 years prior to that, I had been aware of allegations of corrupt activities on the part of the same senior fisheries officers. In 1990 or 1991, four or five years before the case in question came to court, another fisheries officer rang me and said "For God's sake will you do something to stop these thugs and their reign of terror." He went on to explain that the thugs to whom he referred were his superiors, namely, the fisheries inspectors who were named in court by the fisheries officer in 1995.
The Southern Regional Fisheries Board area extends from the Wexford coast, along the Waterford coast and on to Ballycotton. Drift net salmon fishermen working that coast were subjected to a campaign of terror for 15 years and, as the Deputy representing the area, I received continuous complaints from them. If they did not pay bribes for information regarding the departure times of fishing patrols, they were persecuted.
I conveyed a message from the fisheries officer to a local Garda superintendent in 1991. I informed him that he would need to invite a senior garda, of at least the rank of superintendent, from another investigation to investigate the allegations because the fishermen would not speak to local gardaí owing to their lack of confidence in the judicial system and the forces of law and order. However, nothing was done and no investigation took place until fisheries officer Hickey went to court in 1995. As a result of his allegations, a Garda investigation took place and a court case was put in train but no one was convicted. However, the manager of the Southern Regional Fisheries Board was sacked last year and the two senior fisheries inspectors about whom the allegations were made were dismissed three weeks ago. The fisheries board has not indicated why it saw fit to dismiss these people but we have a right to an explanation.
I wrote to the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Ministers for Justice and the Marine in 1991 and passed on the allegations – I knew them to be true – made to me by the fisheries officer. However, no action was taken. I request that the House be told why the two fisheries officers were dismissed and that every case with which they were involved between 1980 and 1995 which led to the conviction of drift net salmon fishermen be reviewed. There is a serious suspicion that those cases involved grave miscarriages of justice. I believe the members of the Judiciary who presided over the cases in question were hoodwinked by those inspectors. This is an alarming situation.
Drift net salmon fishermen working in Counties Waterford, Wexford and Cork will corroborate my story. They will state that people believe grave injustices were visited on good, decent people, a number of whom went to prison, many of whom were assaulted and dozens of whom lost their licences and were never able to put to sea again in order to earn a livelihood. The House must be told why the two officers were dismissed and informed about the action it is proposed to take in connection with the cases with which they were involved.
