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Killybegs Fishermen’s Organization Executive Director Séan O’Donoghue has said fishermen do not enjoy the same rights as other citizens under the new penalty point system introduced at the weekend.
Mr. O’Donoghue said that the fishing industry is not opposed to the penalty point system, but is concerned that there is no right to challenge the points.
Speaking on RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland, he said that in other countries where the penalty point system was already in operation, there was the option to challenge the imposition of points “using lesser forms of proof.”
Mr. O’Donoghue said that there had been several previous attempts to introduce a legal instrument regarding penalty points for fishers for serious breaches of the Common Fisheries Policy.
The Taoiseach, who is the acting Fisheries Minister, had “conveniently ignored” that the Supreme Court had overturned previous efforts to introduce such a system, he said.
The reaction from the fishing industry across the country has been enormous, Donoghue said.
“We cannot understand how the Taoiseach signed this Statutory Instrument.”
In 2018, Fianna Fáil had been instrumental in having a similar legal instrument annulled in the Dáil, he added.
When the fishing sector saw penalty points included in the Government Program, they understood that it would mean “a fair and reasonable penalty point system”.
But what the Taoiseach had signed meant there would be no right to appeal except through a court of law, which was “completely unfair,” he said.
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