Ireland’s fishing industry is calling for an overhaul of the country’s Sea Fisheries Protection Authority (SFPA), claiming the independent statutory body carries out excessive and burdensome investigations into the sector.
The recent bout of backlash comes after a case SFPA brought against an export firm in the country was dismissed out of court due to a lack of evidence.
Killybegs, Ireland-based export firm Sean Ward (Fish Exports) was acquitted in early November on two SFPA charges of tampering with weighing equipment in 2015.
Irish MP Pat Gallagher said during a Joint Committee on Fisheries and Maritime Affairs debate that cases like these were straining the judicial system within Ireland.
“The courts are being clogged up,” he said in calling for SFPA reform.
Others have said some SFPA investigations are tantamount to harassment.
During the same debate, Irish Fish Processors and Exporters Association CEO Brendan Byrne said that “hassle and haranguing” by the SFPA has discouraged foreign vessels from landing fish at Irish ports.
Another fishery industry representative, Cormac Burke, claimed the SFPA is overstaffed, saying the agency’s 300 staff members resulted in the highest ratio of enforcement officers to fishing vessels within the E.U.
In a statement sent to SeafoodSource, the SFPA said the case against Sean Ward “was a prosecution taken by the Director of Public Prosecutions [DPP] on evidence provided by the SFPA, the National Standards Authority of Ireland, and An Garda Síochána.”
“As it was a prosecution taken by the DPP, it is currently not appropriate for the SFPA to comment on the case, including on the comments made by Deputy Gallagher; that is a matter for the Office of the DPP.”
Ecologist Padraic Fogarty told SeafoodSource that Ireland’s fishing industry was engaging in a “full frontal attack” on the SFPA in an effort to get the agency to “back off,” especially as more stringent regulations are coming down the pipeline for the sector.
“Not since the attack on [Ireland’s Environmental Protection Agency] in 2023 from farmer organizations and their political supporters have we seen a public body come under such sustained pressure,” Fogarty said in a recent LinkedIn post. “The aim of these attacks is to dampen enthusiasm within the SFPA for their work amid a new wave of much-needed regulations for the fishing fleet that will begin to come into force in 2026. The fishing industry is under existential pressure at the moment from a variety of sources, and it is terribly misguided of them to think that weakening regulations is the solution.”
Increased enforcement activity from the SFPA stems back to audits carried out by the E.U. between 2018 and 2020, which were critical of Ireland’s failure to prosecute more cases against companies violating fishing control measures.
“Principally, the [E.U. Commission] identified shortcomings related to the effective control of the weighing of catches of small pelagic species, issues related to underreporting of catches of these species, the inadequate and ineffective sanctioning system for offenses committed by operators, and the lack of control and enforcement of bluefin tuna catches by recreational vessels,” a 2018 E.U. audit on the matter stated.
