I want to address my remarks to the House and to the Minister in particular in the most compelling manner I can. I want to speak not just on behalf of the Fine Gael Party or the fishermen in my coastal constituency but on what is virtually an all-party basis. I assure the Minister that what I have to say comes not just from me but from many conversations I have had with fisheries organisations, members of the Fine Gael Party, in particular Deputy Perry who is the spokesman on this issue, and members of the Minister's party, Fianna Fáil.
A consensus has emerged that one real issue must be dealt with as the main bone of contention and that there is a solution to it. In other respects there is general consensus that nobody is trying to stop the Minister from getting his Bill through. It is accepted that serious offences should be dealt with by appropriate penalties. That leaves us with the one core issue, namely, whether Irish fishermen will be dealt with on the same basis as their colleagues in all the continental European countries and, as regards the new legislation in the UK, how they will be dealt with in that country. If the Minister sticks to the approach he has maintained, we will be the only country in the European Union without administrative sanctions. I suppose some countries would not be too interested as they do not have much coastline, a bit like seven miles of coast in the Minister's constituency. We will stick out as the only country in the European Union that does not have a system of administrative sanctions for minor and technical offences.
I speak on what is virtually an all-party basis in making a last-ditch appeal to the Minister to listen to the stakeholders and all sides of this House, even those on the benches behind him. Any of them who have spoken agree with the simple approach I suggest. In many ways the issue has been clouded by spurious arguments and black propaganda against the fishing industry. Let us put that aside. What we are talking about is simply a system of administrative sanctions for minor and technical offences, no more, no less.
People have said they do not mind fishermen having to pay the penalty for serious offences. I would go further than that. We should throw the book at those involved in serious offences. Those who deliberately rob and rape the seas steal the national quota from their colleagues, which should be available to all fishermen on a fair basis, and they steal the rightful inheritance of sustainable stocks from future generations. Let us get that black propaganda off the stage. In so far as serious penalties are necessary to stop that activity, let us have them.
Once we clear that, we are back to why the Bill is necessary. Criminal sanctions are available. I accept that the fisheries legislation is more than 40 years old and needs to be updated. We must also deal with the very limited issues arising from the Supreme Court decision in fisheries and other areas. They are of a technical nature relating to the ability to have secondary legislation in place of primary legislation. Let us deal with that. It is not a problem. Let us, however, be consistent and fair in what we produce. I ask the Minister to pause, stand back and examine what he is doing. I have highlighted the issue of our fishermen being the only ones in Europe who in future will be subject to criminal sanctions for minor and technical offences. Surely that is a most unfair and erratic approach to the matter.
I draw the Minister's attention to the need for fairness in dealing with serious offences. I refer in particular to what has occurred recently arising from the alleged abuses in Scotland. As I understand it, what happened in Peterhead in Scotland is being investigated by the UK authorities. Boats from the UK are alleged to have been involved in criminal activities and some Irish boats are also alleged to have been involved. An investigation is under way in the UK which has not yet concluded. Surely in dealing with the Peterhead allegations we should wait until the investigation is completed.
More importantly, two other things have happened. While in Brussels recently, the Minister voluntarily offered a reduction in the mackerel quota for the current year of 6,381 tonnes. My concern is simple: all the boats involved in mackerel fishing will now suffer as a consequence of this precipitate action on the part of the Minister. If Irish boats are proven to have been involved, let them be prosecuted. If they were involved, they should carry any cuts. I see no reason the majority of boats who had nothing to do with the allegations should have to bear the penalty.
My understanding is that the allegations are against a maximum of five Irish boats. Forty boats in total are involved in the division of the quota. Even if these offences are proven, should the other 35 boats have to bear the consequences? In some ways this sounds like collective punishment. The last time we in west Cork saw collective punishment was when the Black and Tans went on a rampage after one of its members was shot during the War of Independence. It burnt out entire villages in reprisal. This is not the way to have a fair system. This is not the kind of system our fishermen deserve. If the case is proven against the five boats involved and the quota must be cut, they should bear the consequences. The innocent should not bear the same punishment as the guilty.
What concerns me about the Minister's approach so far is that, to some degree, this has been his thinking in regard to the Bill. I accept there are difficulties with the Commission. If we are honest, these difficulties largely arose in the Department. The Commission's actions were principally due to the Department failing to make returns to it. It is highly unfair to raise the threat of huge penalties having to be paid by the taxpayer, allegedly because of the activities of fishermen, when in fact the main complaints are due to failures on the part of the Department. Even if the Minister does not acknowledge this, I am glad that his new Minister of State, Deputy Browne, informed me yesterday that this was so. He admitted, in reply to Questions Nos. 128 and 166:
The general situation is that due to staffing shortages and the need to develop new technology to respond to a greatly increased and more complex reporting requirement to the Commission, particularly in relation to fishing effort, it had not proved possible for some time to submit all of the various reports required under the Common Fisheries Policy within the various deadlines. The Department recognised that there was a need to secure improved delivery of the necessary reports and it kept the Commission periodically apprised of its plans to secure such improvement.
I am pleased to report that such improvement has now been secured. This has resulted from, first, advances in staffing terms from a complement of some 27 administrative and specialist control staff in 1999 to a planned 101 by early next year and, second, there has also been considerable investment on the installation of new technology in the form of the integrated fisheries information system, IFIS, which embraces all the key information requirements on catches and fleets.
Well done. I am delighted. Let us discharge our obligations to the Commission. I may have been a bit tough on the Minister and the Department on Committee Stage. If the staff and technology were not available, we should have been told. The publicity emanating from the Department appeared to suggest that the problems arose because of the fishermen when the difficulty was within the Department. If the reason is that it did not have enough staff or up-to-date technology, that is fair enough but let us not continue with this propaganda against the innocent.
The main case made by me and colleagues from all sides of the House relates to administrative sanctions. When this Bill was first published, a story circulated that the layout of the Bill was necessary because of dictates from the EU. This assertion was shot to pieces when the committee met the Commissioner and it turned out that the opposite was true. As my colleague, Deputy Perry, noted, the EU encouraged, rather than prescribed or mandated, the adoption of administrative sanctions. It encouraged the adoption of the same level of sanctions for minor and technical offences throughout the EU.
We were then informed that administrative sanctions were contrary to the Constitution. My colleagues and I debated this point on Second Stage. This assertion was clearly demolished by the independent senior counsel and it is now accepted that this impediment is out of the way. The Minister then argued forcefully on Committee Stage that it was not possible to introduce administrative sanctions because any penalties needed to have, in the Minister's words, "a dissuasive and deterrent effect". Two issues arise here. The first is that we are talking about administrative sanctions for minor and technical offences. In addition, if the EU insists that all our penalties have a dissuasive and deterrent effect, why does the same regime not apply throughout Europe? How can the rest of Europe have administrative sanctions for minor and technical offences but we cannot? This argument also falls by the wayside.
The next pillar in the defence of the regime set out in the Bill was the definition of minor offences. The Minister effectively challenged the Opposition to produce amendments to demonstrate its commitment to deal with minor offences. We did not pretend that it would be a simple matter. It is said that there is a simple solution to every complex problem but I accept that this is not true. It is a complex problem because we are using a different approach, which has a precedent in various Acts where administrative sanctions are applied. Under the Constitution, it is possible to apply administrative sanctions with the consent of the offender. Once one crosses this hurdle and accepts this argument in legal and constitutional terms, it is possible to introduce such a system.
The Opposition rose to the challenge laid down by the Minister. Deputy Broughan's proposal runs to four pages, which nearly amounts to a Bill. This shows that he and his colleagues in the Labour Party were prepared to apply their drafting and legislative skills to meet the Minister's challenge. My colleague, Deputy Perry, has done the same and produced a major proposal by way of an amendment. It is not often that I praise Sinn Féin, but Deputy Ferris has produced an honest attempt to grapple with this problem.
