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“Passing of Sea Fisheries Bill, Major Blow to Industry” The IS&WFO has expressed it’s deep disappointment at the passing of the Sea Fisheries Bill through the Dail yesterday without any provision for administrative sanctions. According to Manager, Jason Whooley, "Minister Dempsey has forced this Bill through the Dail. It is well known that there was enormous resistance both in his own Party and in the opposition to the fact that this Bill distances us even further from the legislation in place in other EU Member States. Thirty TD’s spoke against the Bill during the long running debate and even the EU Commissioner Mr. Borg stated that he would prefer an administrative system. The Commission has acknowledged numerous times that even before this Bill was passed, Irish fishermen were treated more harshly than their European counterparts and now their situation will be even worse. We have asked many times during the debate and we continue to ask - Why are Irish fishermen the only ones in Europe being routinely criminalised? According to the latest available Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) Score Card in the EU in 2003 there were 9,502 serious breaches of the CFP - 103 of these were by Irish vessels which constitutes only 1% of the total". Mr. Whooley continued; "Minister Dempsey has made allegations of organised criminality, he spoke about the threat of fines from Europe and un-constitutionality of administrative sanctions. We strongly dispute all of these assertions. The Minister himself has stated that the average value of gear and catch confiscated from Irish vessels in the past three years was €6,000. This hardly constitutes multi-million euro fraud and certainly does not justify his heavy-handed actions. If Minister Dempsey really has the conservation of fish stocks at heart, and we hope that he does, then let him use his sledgehammer approach at European level. The way this Industry is developing, the time will come when Irish vessels are tied to the piers around the coast while they watch foreign vessels continuing to fish on our doorstep".
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