Fisheries committee to ask for review of Attorney General’s advice

A BACKBENCH committee will today ask the Government to revisit legal advice it received from the Attorney General (AG) on controversial new fisheries legislation.

The Joint Committee on Communications, chaired by Deputy Noel O'Flynn and dominated by FF backbenchers, has consistently criticised provisions in powerful new laws to prevent over-fishing and other infringements in the Irish fishing fleet.

Some of the its objections to the Sea-Fisheries and Maritime Jurisdiction Bill were addressed by amendments introduced by Marine Minister Pat 'The Cope' Gallagher late last month.

But the majority of the committee is still unhappy that less serious offences will be dealt with by criminal punishment rather than administrative sanctions, which it says is the norm in other EU countries.

However, the AG is believed to have advised the Cabinet that the offences could only be dealt with within the criminal code, otherwise the Bill's constitutionality might be vulnerable to challenge.

The committee then took the unprecedented step of seeking independent legal opinion that differed from the Government's advice.

Ahead of its own examination of the Bill due to start today the committee has written to Mr Gallagher taking issue with aspects of the AG's advice.

The letter points out that administrative sanctions have been upheld by Irish courts in other regulated areas, including the greyhound industry, medical practitioners, solicitors, and gardaí.

It also says the EU Commission's own preference is for administrative sanctions.

The Government's position is that clear evidence has emerged in recent years of widespread over-fishing and quota violations in Ireland, which the current laws are inadequate to deal with.

In one case last year, fisheries officers in Scotland discovered 40 tonnes of mackerel landed by three Irish boats. That haul was equivalent to the entire Irish annual quota.

One committee member, Denis O'Donovan, said yesterday most fishermen respect strong legislation for more serious offences.

However, he asserted that it was unfair for relatively trivial offences, such as log book errors or small catches over the quota, to be dealt with by what he described as sweeping powers of criminal sanction and forfeiture.

"The Government should look at administrative sanctions, including fines and prohibition from fishing for a certain period, or else deal with cases summarily in the District Court, rather than on indictment in the Circuit Court.

"The committee is perplexed that our own legal opinion is diagonally different to that we believe is the AG's advice. That is why we want the Government to review all the advice."

The Government view is that strong legislation is needed to comply with the tougher line adopted by the EU in the past two years.