Seanad Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 1 Mar 2006

Vol. 182 No. 21

Marine Accidents.

Mr. Higgins

Thank you, a Leas-Chathaoirligh, for selecting this matter for the Adjournment. I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Browne, to the House and congratulate him on his new appointment.

The fishing vessels lost at sea scheme was introduced by the then Minister for the Marine and Natural Resources, Deputy Fahey. The scheme was launched in June 2001. The closing date for receipt of applications was 31 December 2001. The purpose of the scheme was to compensate families or individuals who had lost fishing vessels at sea by restoring to them the equivalent tonnage of the lost vessel. While it seemed a great idea and an excellent scheme, it turned out to be more a scam than a scheme.

First, the scheme was only advertised in the three marine publications, The Marine Times, The Skipper and The Fishing News. There was no publication of the scheme on national or local radio, on television or in the national or local print press. As a result, individuals or families who had lost fishing vessels and were no longer involved in fishing were unaware of the scheme and, therefore, could not apply. One such family was the Byrne family from Bruckless, County Donegal. Francis Byrne was the owner and skipper of the Skifjord which sank off the Donegal coast in October 1981. Mr. Byrne, his son, Jimmy, and three crewmen were lost. Two of the bodies were never recovered. Francis’s widow was left to rear her surviving eight children.

The Byrnes were out of fishing and were totally unaware of the scheme. They applied late via the Minister and local Deputy, Deputy Coughlan. Their application was rejected because it was too late. Danny Byrne, son of the deceased owner and skipper, contacted me. I took up the matter with the Ombudsman. Nothing I can say here can adequately express my admiration for the diligence with which the Ombudsman delved into the issue and arrived at the conclusion that the scheme was "seriously deficient and flawed".

When the Ombudsman went digging for information on the Skifjord— five people had been drowned — the Department of the Communications, Marine and Natural Resources replied that it had no record of the Skifjord case. When the Ombudsman persisted, the Department eventually recovered two extensive files on the Skifjord “in deep storage”. What a Department. What a mess. What a scam.

The net outcome is that the bereaved and-or financially bereft families who could have or should have qualified for the scheme never even knew about it. How could they as they were not among the chosen few? Four months before the scheme was launched, the then Minister, Deputy Fahey, sat down with two of his Galway West constituent applicants from the Aran Islands and unveiled the proposed terms of the scheme to them. One of them was so patently ineligible that a senior civil servant advised the Minister that the application should be rejected. However, it was not rejected. The official was overruled — enough said. The applicant in question, and another of the Minister's crony constituents got 75% of the available tonnage.

This was an EU-approved scheme. The Minister, Deputy Dempsey, and the Minister of State, Deputy Browne, must reply in the first instance to the queries raised by the Ombudsman. However, I am certain of one thing. If no action is forthcoming from the Minister, Europe will act vigorously.

Minister of State at the Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources (Mr. J. Browne)

I thank Senator Higgins for raising this issue and for his kind remarks. Following consultation with the fishing industry representative organisations, the fishing vessels lost at sea scheme was introduced in June 2001. The purpose of this scheme was to enable qualifying applicants, who were otherwise unable to do so for financial or related reasons, to provide replacement capacity for the purposes of introducing a replacement vessel in respect of fishing boats lost at sea between 1980 and the establishment of the fishing boat register in 1990, in order to continue a family tradition of sea-fishing. The scheme did not provide financial support for the acquisition of a fishing vessel itself.

The scheme was announced via press advertisements placed in The Marine Times, The Skipper and The Fishing News. The Department also wrote to the representative organisations, as well as the potential applicants which were then known, with details of the scheme. The closing date for receipt of applications was 31 December 2001. Some 68 applications were received and six were successful. All applications received were assessed in accordance with the terms of the scheme. Unsuccessful applicants were refused on the basis that they failed to satisfy one or more of the scheme’s criteria. The amount of capacity made available was based on the capacity of the lost vessel that was the subject of the application. The total amount of replacement capacity made available to the six successful applicants was 283.7 gross tonnes and 1,071.01 kw.

In January 2003, over 12 months after the closing date, an application under the scheme was received in the Department from a family in County Donegal. The vessel in question had sunk in October 1981 off the Donegal coast with the tragic loss of five lives. The family was informed that its application could not be considered because it was not received by the closing date.

In December 2004, the Office of the Ombudsman wrote to the Department indicating that it was examining a complaint from the family in question in regard to its application under the scheme, and seeking specified information. The Department provided the information and documentation required in full. Following further correspondence, the Ombudsman suggested a "serious defect" of the scheme was that fishing representatives and 16 individuals were contacted in regard to the scheme but that the Department was aware of other cases and did not contact them. The Ombudsman also suggested the scheme be reviewed and that relevant cases not contacted by the Department at the time of its launch be considered eligible to apply and have their cases examined.

Having considered this letter, the Department wrote to the Ombudsman pointing out, inter alia, that it was not necessary to have identified all potential cases in advance of launching the scheme. As is the case with any call for applications, tenders or expressions of interest, the Department could have no definitive way of knowing in advance the number of vessels that might be covered by the scheme. Furthermore, and critically, due to changes in EU rules introduced since the scheme was launched, it would not be possible to reopen it. The allocation of further capacity under this scheme or any similar scheme would now be in breach of EU legislation in so far as vessels would be licensed and entered on the fishing boat register without the removal of equivalent capacity from it.

The purpose of the scheme was clearly to sustain or maintain a family tradition of sea-fishing. Any replacement capacity granted would have to be used by the family of the applicant only and could not be sold. Accordingly, it was reasonable that the then Minister, in introducing the scheme, would do so in a way that reasonably targeted persons involved in the fishing industry, as was consistent with the purpose of the scheme. The fact that persons no longer involved in the fishing industry were not specifically targeted was not inconsistent with the purpose of the concession being introduced.

In the case of any administrative scheme there must, if there is to be any certainty in public policy making, be some cut-off date. The cut-off date for applications for this scheme was 31 December 2001 and the family's application was received more than a year late. The decision to refuse the application in question was, therefore, reasonable.

Furthermore, the legal environment has changed radically from the time the scheme was introduced. As I already indicated, member states are precluded from entering new capacity into the fleet without a compensatory withdrawal of at least the same amount of capacity. Even if the scheme had been left open-ended, it would have been terminated as of 31 December 2002. Accordingly, I do not accept the scheme was deficient, nor do I propose to review or reopen it as EU regulations do not now allow for such a scheme.

The Seanad adjourned at 7.55 p.m. until10.30 a.m on Thursday, 2 March 2006.