The High Court has refused two fishermen’s application for interim orders that would have reopened the Nephrops fishery in Functional Unit 16 (FU 16) while their judicial review proceeds. The court did not decide whether the authorities’ catch estimate or the closure was lawful.
Pat Fitzpatrick and Michael Flannery challenged the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine’s decision to close FU 16 to Irish Nephrops fishing from August 2017. They argued that the Sea Fisheries Protection Authority (SFPA) should have relied on vessel logbooks, which recorded 733 tonnes of catch, rather than its estimate of 1,991 tonnes. The judgment gives 773 tonnes as the logbook figure in its opening account, but later records 733 tonnes in the SFPA’s letter and the court’s summary of its position.
The SFPA said it considered the logbook data unreliable because vessel movements, fishing times and reported catches indicated widespread under-reporting in FU 16. It said its estimate drew on those patterns and that it had a duty to transmit accurate information. The Minister closed the fishery after the reported estimate indicated that the quota had been exceeded.
The fishermen sought orders requiring the Minister to use logbook data for future quota decisions and requiring the SFPA to base future reports to the European Commission on those records. They also sought to prevent the Minister from relying on the SFPA’s methodology. Some requested relief concerned past decisions and information already sent to the Commission. The judge considered those parts moot, but found that requests governing future decisions and reports remained live.
At this interlocutory stage, the court found the fishermen had an arguable case on whether the SFPA could use its methodology and whether fair procedures were required. It did not find they had established the “strong case” required for the mandatory relief sought. The judge said the Authority had a counter-argument that it was required to produce the most accurate figures possible and could use other methods if it reasonably suspected large-scale under-reporting. The court also noted the unresolved legal and factual questions about applying fair-procedure rights to decisions concerning a quota for a sea area, rather than an individual vessel.
The judge weighed the risk of injustice, including the public interest in operating the fishing quota system and the potential consequences if figures sent to the EU were inaccurate. Although the closure represented a serious loss to the fishermen’s businesses, the evidence did not establish that they were likely to become insolvent, and the court considered damages an adequate future remedy. It concluded that refusing the injunctions carried less risk of injustice than granting them and refused all the interlocutory relief sought.
The substantive judicial review remained unresolved. The court also made no finding on any possible criminal investigation or prosecution of the applicants, saying that issue was not before it.