The Supreme Court has upheld a High Court decision awarding damages to two fishermen after they relied on Department advice to continue scallop fishing in an area where Irish vessels were not entitled to fish. The award covers losses directly connected to their arrest by French authorities and several days without fishing; the Supreme Court left the amount undisturbed.
Eugene Bates and Brendan Moore, commercial fishermen and business partners, were fishing with their vessels in area VIIIa of the Bay of Biscay in August 2003. After a French patrol aircraft told the vessels on 18 August that scallop fishing there was illegal, Bates contacted the Department. He received oral advice, confirmed by fax, that the vessels could fish in the area up to the limit of French territorial waters. He relayed that advice to the skippers.
French maritime authorities arrested the vessels in the early hours of 19 August and took them to Brest. The next day, the skippers secured their release by lodging bonds totalling €27,000. At a later hearing, Bates and the skipper of the Alicia pleaded guilty to illegal fishing. Fines of €18,000 were imposed, alongside civil charges of €48,000 and costs of €1,500.
At trial, the High Court found that Department officials had negligently provided incorrect information. The mistake arose from a version of a European fishing regulation available within the Department that omitted a line showing Ireland had zero fishing effort in area VIIIa. The High Court inferred that this was also the source of the earlier misinformation. It awarded damages for the payments resulting from the arrests and the immediate loss of fishing days. It did not award the separately claimed losses connected to converting the Alicia for Bay of Biscay fishing and its later sale. The amount of the damages was not challenged on appeal.
The State defendants argued that imposing liability for advice could expose public bodies to claims arising from routine dealings. The Supreme Court distinguished the licensing function, which served the wider statutory and European conservation regime, from the specific advice given when arrest was imminent. It held that the Department had assumed responsibility to provide accurate information in that particular situation, creating a special relationship that supported a duty of care.
The Court upheld the High Court’s reasoning and order. It did not find that the Department owed licence applicants a general duty to advise them which areas they could fish. The appeal therefore left in place the limited damages award tied to the immediate consequences of the advice and arrests.