Thrown out!

Another SFPA cock-up as Judge throws out pelagic case - - probably the first of many acquittals of trumped up charges to come

Isn’t it a strange thing that when the SFPA brings charges on an Irish fishing vessel or a fisherman with what they describe as a ‘fisheries offence’ then their arrogant self-praise is published all over the national media about the catching all these ‘crooked’ fishermen, but months/years later when these same charges are dismissed by a judge and are deemed to have been a complete waste of the court’s time then we don’t hear a whisper about it on any newspaper, radio or tv platform.

Cormac Burke, IFSA reports on yet another SFPA fiasco.

Between one thing and another its been a bad week for the Sea Fisheries Protection ‘Authority’ (SFPA) - and their mood (or their reputation) is not likely to have improved much following a Criminal Court ruling yesterday to drop all charges against a Killybegs pelagic vessel due to ‘lack of evidence brought before the Court’ by the SFPA.

This particular case, one of a vast number against Irish pelagic vessels awaiting court hearing, relates to a fishing trip that took place in October 2021 but that the charges & caution were only brought against the vessel by the SFPA in April 2022 and since then several court adjournments meant that the case only came before a judge this week - - some three and a half years after the so-called ‘offence’ took place.

As previously explained in several IFSA articles over the past number of years, these charges are attached to a ridiculous SFPA rule in that they refuse to monitor the breakdown of the catch composition as it goes through the processing factory and instead take random baskets as samples as they travel out of the chute as the boat lands the catch at the quayside…

… not only is this method bizarrely random when the in-factory system is entirely and irrefutably accurate, it is incredible to learn that the skipper or first mate of the vessel must provide the SFPA with a ‘guesstimate’ of what percentage of a bycatch might be through the main catch (which is virtually impossible to be sure about when the fish are pumped from net to the vessel’s tanks in the rolling conditions when hauling out at sea - - and, if that’s not bizarre enough, should that skipper/mate be more than 10% out in his ‘guess’ of bycatch then the SFPA deems him to have ‘exceeded the tolerance level’ (and guesstimating too much under is an equal crime of ‘underreporting’) and he’s charged with breaking the law and must face court and possible fines, not to mention the danger of getting penalty points which could lead to losing his skipper’s licence and his right to make a living.

One of more than a dozen pelagic fishing vessels are currently awaiting a Court date, many of these vessels have two of three separate charges laid on them - meaning that in fact the real number of court cases piling up the calendar is well in excess of twenty, most of them relating to this SFPA ‘guesstimate’ and being outside the tolerance level - - all of which makes it a farce when the fishermen all know and accept that the exact quantity of the volume of fish they land is accurately recorded in the factories and that they are not guilty of landing a single kilo of fish outside of what has been officially recorded and deducted from their quota allowance.

Ireland a joke in the overall EU system

Taking the case of the vessel with the charges yesterday as a standalone example, the fist mate’s logbook ‘guesstimate’ of herring bycatch through the mackerel was 25,000 kilos when the reality transpired to be 33,800 kilos which, according to the SFPA (who don’t mind using the factory figures to get the exact tally when it suits their case) meant that the estimation was out by 35% - - and of course this was enough for them to make a public media statement about ‘the crime’, then levy charges of breaches of fisheries offences, and leave the fisherman to deal with large legal costs and go through three years of stress, and after all of that to then have the case dismissed - -

- AND NOW, let’s look at an identical SFPA case from 2022 of a Swedish vessel who, based on SFPA margins, exceeded the tolerance of guesstimate by 235% when landing in Ireland but when this vessel faced these charges back in Sweden he was given a warning, the matter recorded as a “minor error” and he came away with an administrative fine of €170 - - by the way, under the exact same EU rules that exist in Sweden as in Ireland.

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New Oireachtas & Dail Fisheries Committees must investigate SFPA and legal costs

The cases of charges and court dates brought by the SFPA and the DAFM against fishermen and vessels which are then dismissed have become so common that they barely make the news any more - -

— but no one gives any thought to the people who are facing the charges and the impact of such prosecution has on their personal lives - - for example, the fisherman facing the charges yesterday on behalf of his vessel owners, had to appear in court immediately following closure of a rape case, drugs related case and other serious and disturbing criminal issues - - and yet, at the whim of a vindictive SFPA, here was a decent fisherman and family man who has never committed a crime being dealt with and associated with such lowlife.

But often when such cases are dismissed or, as in yesterday’s event, dismissed by the Judge for the SFPA’s “inability to show exact evidence of the bycatch” then no one ever seems to ask who has covered the cost.

Every time a case is thrown out and the defendant is awarded costs, that’s another chunk of taxpayers’ money that has been wasted, not to mention so much court time used up dealing with these trumped-up charges - - and, on more than one occasion, Irish fisheries officials have been known to say “we have deeper pockets than you” when the debate of legal costs between the accuser and the defendant comes up…

… but the fact is that the authorities DO NOT have deep pockets - - no bottomless pit of DAFM or SFPA money exits that is set aside for covering lost legal cases which, over the course of the past 19 years of the SFPA lifetime must run into millions of euros - - and yet not once on any end-of-year balance sheet has this figure appeared in the loss making column.

The newly-appointed Oireachtas Committees, along with DAFM Minister Heydon and Fisheries Minister Dooley, have a major task before them in establishing the root & branch review of the dysfunctional SFPA that this industry has been demanding for the past two decades.