The Supreme Court has rejected a Kerry fisherman’s claim that he was entitled to use the tonnage of his vessel as replacement capacity for another boat entering the fishing fleet.
Carl Daly, a fisherman and mussel farmer operating from Kilmakillogue Harbour, Lauragh, owned the 35-foot Angela Madeleine. He had the vessel built in 1991 with BIM and European Community financial assistance.
At the time, government policy generally required new entrants to the fishing fleet to remove equivalent existing tonnage. Aquaculture vessels were outside that requirement. Daly initially proposed mussel harvesting alongside some potting, but after being told replacement tonnage would be required for wider fishing activity, he stated in February 1991 that the vessel would be used exclusively for mariculture.
The Minister offered a licence on terms that the tonnage would be used only for aquaculture and could not later be disposed of for general fishing purposes. Daly accepted those conditions in writing.
The position became less clear in October 1993 when the Department provisionally classified the Angela Madeleine in both the specific and demersal sectors and expressly stated that its capacity could be used on a one-for-one basis to introduce another vessel into the demersal fleet. No promised follow-up letter confirming or changing that provisional classification was sent.
By 1997, Daly was experiencing financial difficulties and arranged to sell the vessel’s tonnage. The proposed transaction initially progressed, but the Department ultimately refused approval, relying on the original 1991 restriction.
Mr Justice Fennelly held that Daly could not reasonably have understood the Minister’s earlier position to have changed before the 1993 letter. Although that letter was capable of amounting to an unambiguous assurance, Daly accepted that he had not materially altered his position in reliance on it.
That defeated his separate claim based on promissory estoppel, which requires reliance to the claimant’s detriment. The Supreme Court therefore upheld the High Court’s dismissal of his judicial review proceedings.