Gone but not forgotten

Has anyone ever noticed how different reports about the fishing industry are handled / mishandled by the Department of Food & the Marine (DAFM) and the officials of other State bodies?

— Editorial comment by Cormac Burke, IFSA

CASE # 1 - The DAFM / GARDA ‘raids’

Even looking back at moderately recent history we have the case where, at the instigation of the DAFM, there took place massive armed Garda Fraud Squad ‘swoops’ in the fishing industry of Killybegs and Galway in November 2004 & July 2007 and, for which RTÉ and mainstream newspapers were issued pre prepared press statements of these major ‘raids’ with “expected criminal activities to be uncovered”.

There were serious drug related raids being carried out in nationwide in those days that didn’t receive as much media coverage as this fisheries ‘fraud’ case but, after raiding homes and offices in Galway and Killybegs, removing files, nothing, bar one minor offence in a processing factory, was ever uncovered.

Despite not turning up anything of substance, whilst casting a major slur on the reputation of the people of the fishing industry, to this day no one in the DAFM, or indeed in the Garda, RTÉ, or the newspapers was held accountable for their actions or statements -- nor did this ‘red herring’ receive much air time in the Dáil when questions should have been asked as to who exactly signed off on this very expensive use of State resources on what transpired to be nothing more than a witch hunt.

CASE #2 - the EU Commission Audit Report

In 2018 a major EU Audit Report looked into the capacity of the SFPA on how they manage within the EU fishing industry covering the period 2012 – 2015 and included contributions from some employed in the Sea Fisheries Protection Authority itself and others.

But let us be clear - - this was a report investigating the SFPA not the Irish fishing industry as the DAFM later tried to allege.

The information from the report was subsequently shared with the Department for Agriculture, Food & Marine (DAFM), the Minister and the SFPA but meanwhile the industry was told that there were allegations against the fishing industry as a result of the report- - but at no stage were the report’s findings given to those being accused and, despite representation made through the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture and Marine by the industry, and with no evidence of wrongdoing ever issued, to this day, the industry continues to defend its integrity.

When this Audit Report was shared with the minister of the day in 2018 (and please note that only the Minister, his senior officials at the DAFM and the SFPA had this report at that time) selectively chosen out-of-context parts of the audit report were leaked to the Irish Examiner and the Mail - - - this COULD NOT have been done by the industry as the report was not available to them…. And it was an intentional stunt by the authorities to distract from the true findings of the report i.e. the serious mis-management issues that existed within the SFPA and that their record keeping was substandard and haphazard, as had been reported.

Although never formally released, a draft version of this EU document came into the hands of commercial Irish fishing industry interests and it was clear that the report found that the SFPA to be an extremely incompetent body and even hinted at a joint DAFM and SFPA agenda to work against the fishing industry.

Repeatedly over the years, if anyone in Government or in the industry tried to get this report published or the case re-opened, the DAFM unofficially claimed that the EU had some “very damming evidence against Ireland’s fishing industry” and that we should ‘let sleeping dogs lie’ in regard to the report that the DAFM were concealing —— and yet, to this day not one hint of any such damning allegations ever raised its head — and does anyone actually believe that IF the EU Commission was in possession of any evidence of wrongdoing in the Irish fishing industry that they wouldn’t not have acted on it by now?

The EU audit report was never made public and this is another case of a report that was obviously buried.

CASE #3- The PwC Reports

While industry sources and submissions sometimes loosely reference multiple government or independent reviews over the past two decades evaluating the SFPA (such as the 2011 Wolfe Report and other internal/external studies), the specific PwC-conducted organizational review into the State fisheries watchdog, SFPA, was a single major report published in 2021.

This was as a result of the Irish government commissioning a prominent PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC) report specifically reviewing the organizational capability and performance of the Sea-Fisheries Protection ‘Authority’ (SFPA) in 2020 (published in April 2021).

The key details of this PwC Report were:

• Scope: It investigated the internal strategy, operating model, governance, culture, and capabilities of the SFPA;

• Core Findings: It found that the SFPA was "not working effectively and requires urgent attention," highlighting serious management, culture, and stakeholder relationship issues, and noting that the authority was no longer "fit for purpose" in its current state;

• Recommendations: It outlined no fewer than 48 priority actions would be required across short-, medium-, and long-term phases to "reset the dial" for the organisation.

CASE #4- THE MULVEY REPORT

This report, commissioned by Minister of State with Special Responsibilities for Fisheries Timmy Dooley, was an independent review of Ireland’s seafood and fishery sector published in July 2026 by independent consultant Kieran Mulvey.

The 42-page review examined an industry that supports nearly 17,000 direct and indirect jobs (contributing roughly €1.24 billion to the economy) and outlined 14 key recommendations to address an existential crisis.

While warning that the Irish seafood sector faces severe pressure from reduced fishing quotas (including a steep drop in 2026 quotas), an ageing fleet (inshore vessels are predominantly 25 to 35 years old), labour shortages, regulatory burdens, and delayed licensing, the prime point was its critical opinion of  the DAFM, its attitude & relationship with the industry —— which did not sit well with the marine civil servants, particularly the Mulvey recommendation for the establishment of a standalone Marine Department, arguing that marine responsibilities are currently too diluted within the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine.

The fact that the establishment of a separate Department of Marine might mean a relocation of this department from its cosy set-up in the same office building as the SFPA HQ in Clonakilty, Co. Cork was obviously an idea that was going to be resisted by the civil servants.

The report also called for a reset of government-industry relations, including the re-establishment of the Seafood Liaison Group and a more unified national lobby structure.

On completion, the Mulvey report was stalled and before it could be presented to Government, and somewhere between BIM and the DAFM, it was apparently ‘sanitised’ with the new version bearing little resemblance to the original — so yet another report with the potential for positive change for the industry is cast in the bottom drawer of a filing cabinet somewhere.

CASE #5 — THE BERKLEY REPORT

Although we are told that this report contains feedback and recommendations from the industry (and for which the Government announced a special €20 million fund for in the recent budget), for some strange reason this report hasn’t as yet been made public either.

So it was a case of the Tainiste and several ministers telling people on budget day saying something along the lines of: “we’re going to spend €20 million on the recommendations of a report that we’re not actually showing you… but we’ll have meetings in the coming months”.

CASE #6 THE OIREACHTAS REPORT

Now this is the report that the industry does hold some hopes for because the Oireachtas Fisheries Committee cannot be bullied or pressurised by neither marine civil servants nor State bodies.

The Joint Committee on Fisheries and Maritime Affairs published its major Report on Sea-Fisheries Protection on May 26th this year featuring some 14 recommendations on better industry consultation, the introduction of non-criminal penalties for fisheries offences and better oversight of the SFPA’s operations.

The Oireachtas Committee followed up this SFPA report with its first Annual Report on July 2nd.

• Fisheries (Amendment) Bill 2026: Pre-legislative scrutiny commenced in September 2026.

• Seafood Sector Group Report: Awaiting a publication decision as of October 2026

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Conclusion

I think we can see a thread in what happened to all these reports: if they (the various reports) were in any way critical of the DAFM, SFPA or BIM then they got sanitised, re-worded or conveniently ‘mislaid’….

Strange then that DAFM/SFPA reports on trumped up charges against fishermen or fish factories that are only used as a threat or harassment but never lead to any conviction, also seem to get mislaid.

And stranger still that we have never once seen mention on any annual DAFM/SFPA reports of how many cases brought over the years against a vessel skipper have been dismissed by a judge due to lack of evidence or due to incompetence in putting forward the charges (and how much these DAFM / SFPA trumped up charges have cost the State in legal fees, and if these legal costs are not coming out of the DAFM/SFPA’s own operating budget, then is it directly out of taxpayers’ money?)

Corruption is a very strong word to use in any scenario, but in the case of the operations of the DAFM / SFPA over the past twenty years, this word doesn’t come near to describing what’s going on.

We can only hope that the report of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Fisheries will be the first step towards finding some truth and justice for this industry.