Conor D McGuinness Questions SFPA EU Funding and Inspection Practices

The first one relates to the SFPA budget and what proportion of that budget, if any, comes from the European Union? I'd have to come back to you directly on that, Chairman. If you raised that with me last week, I'd have had the file on that, but I'll come back to you on that. But would it be fair to say that a portion of its budget comes from the European Union under MFAF? It may come under MFAF. I don't have the percentages. There is some money coming from MFAF, but I'll come back to you with the specifics on it. I guess, following on from that, and we take it that there is some MFAF funding going into the budget, is that for specific programs? Just that I have here, so 21 to 26, 800,000 in 2026 comes under the MFAF subhead here. In 2024, that was 1.56 million, and back in 21, it was 1.6, so it seems to be reducing. It was 800 in 2025 as well. I guess then the political question, does it make sense that, and is there perhaps a potential conflict of interest where the agency of this state tasked with policing both Irish and EU-flagged, and indeed third, country vessels operating in our waters is part funded and dependent on the European Union for a part of its budget? Does that perhaps colour, or give the possibility that it might colour its approach to EU-flagged vessels? No, because the funding provided by the SFPA comes from the department. So you asked for the breakdown in relation to the funding that comes from MFAF. That's departmental and provided, as we do in the vote, of monies directly to the SFPA. So they're agnostic to the source of the funding. Their guiding principle is the 2006 Act, and they must follow the Act. So I wouldn't have any concerns whatsoever about the source of the funding. Are you aware of any other enforcement agency attached to any other department of government that has some of its budget funded by the European Union? I'm not aware, but I'm happy to check it out. But I wouldn't be at all surprised if quite a number of others might source certain funds from the European Union where their role involves matters of a wider European context. Thank you. Is it possible for a fisherman to be subject to both an administrative and a criminal sanction for the same offence currently? I don't know of the specifics of each of the offences, but I'll happily try and get that information. My understanding, and I'm open to correction, but my understanding is that both approaches are open and can be applied simultaneously. Yeah, the point system operates separately to the criminal sanction system. So the points would be more administrative in that nature, but yes, is the information that I have, yeah. And I would wager that that is out of kilter with any other system of enforcement for any other sector in the state that there are both criminal and administrative sanctions applied by the same body side by side on front of the same investigation. Half of at-sea inspections are inspections. Sorry, half of? Half of at-sea inspections carried out by the SFPA are conducted on Irish vessels, Irish fishing vessels. Again, I would wager that an awful lot more of the fishing activity carried out by vessels in our EEZ are carried out not by Irish vessels. Certainly Irish vessels have much less than half of the quota in those waters. Do you think that it is a fair interpretation of that discrepancy, that there is a disproportionate amount of at-sea inspections carried out on Irish vessels than other EU vessels? You're asking me now to sort of do, and I wouldn't be in a position to do it, to do a full analysis of the activities of the SFPA in terms of their calculation of risk, etc. And that's why I think that kind of oversight is for a body that's independent of the Minister. If it can't be done through the Committee, and I think that could be done through the Committee, quite frankly, I think, unless there's some reason that I just can't bring to mind, but I think that's the kind of discussion that the Committee should be having with the SFPA in terms of its overall operational activity in a general way rather than a specific case-by-case basis. Just based on your response there, it strikes me, and I don't know if you're suggesting this, but what I heard is that there may be a risk profile that SFPA uses to decide what vessels it is going to carry out inspections of at sea, and if 50% or more of those vessels are Irish, and I think we, without having the figures on front of you or me, I think we can assume that significantly a much larger percentage of vessels in our EEZ currently fishing are not Irish-flagged vessels. That does the SFPA consider that there is a greater risk of overfishing by Irish vessels, because that would lead them to disproportionately target them for at sea inspections, because, I mean, I would like to see what that is based on. Yeah, and again, I can't answer that, and it's not that I don't want to, but I just don't have that information, nor I wouldn't rightfully have it nor shouldn't, because that's the function of the SFPA under the legislation to address the operational matters. So I think in terms of whatever risk profiling the SFPA, because they obviously have to manage their activities, they can't board every vessel, they can't check every vessel, so they'll have some methodology of deciding what they board, when they board, and how they manage that. That should be for them, and I think, subject to correction, but I would think that that's something that they could easily provide to the committee in terms of their overall activities. Maybe it's something you could write to them and seek their view on. Yeah, I think we may need to ask you to support us in that, because our experience in this committee of getting answers from the SFPA hasn't been fantastic, to put it very diplomatically, but it is concerning that there doesn't seem to be a level of transparency or oversight, as far as I can see it, in terms of the risk profiling by the SFPA, because when there isn't that transparency piece, it does allow any agency or people operating within an agency to select a risk profile. That might be a matter of low-hanging fruit. It might be, well, we'll board them because they're easiest to board. It costs us less resources to board those, because perhaps they're fishing closer to shore, there is less need for administrative work to take place, be it translation of documents, be it engagement with other fisheries protection. So I just think we need to be careful on that. And then a very final question, Minister, is if you were designing a system from scratch, not the system that we have at the moment, how would you envisage accountability, transparency and answerability being baked into that system if you were creating a sea fisheries protection system from scratch for this date? Yeah, I suppose I don't want to create false hope or expectation. The system we have is what we currently have, and I'm more interested in how we move from what was the architecture of what was there in 2006 and deemed necessary in 2006, how we bring that forward to today's environment to address the challenges which for sure exist, which have probably changed in nature and character from then in terms of the fishing activities. Specifically on the transparency, the accountability piece, because I think that's where a lot of this issue resides. We all accept that there has to be sea fisheries protection, but that's how that's accountable. And I hope you'll understand me here, Chairman, and I'm not being evasive. I don't want to be prescriptive at this stage because I'm mindful that I want to give the committee an input into this. I'm mindful that I will be appointing some external independent people to do this work, and then I'll have to review that. So I want to get the best possible input taking into consideration all the aspects of it, and I'm in the process, or we will begin a process shortly, to define the terms of reference of that work. So I don't want to second guess what the outcome might be or be prescriptive at all at this stage, other than that I'm cognisant of the issues and I want to find a resolution. Thank you, Minister.