The High Court has dismissed a judicial review challenge to the Sea-Fisheries Protection Authority’s requirement that a Killybegs fishing vessel’s catch be weighed under supervision before it was transported to a factory in October 2020.
In a judgment delivered on 3 November 2023, Ms Justice Siobhán Phelan held that the Authority could use its power under Article 60(6) of the EU Control Regulation to require weighing in the presence of officials, even though an approved Irish control plan allowed pelagic fish to be weighed after transport at authorised premises. The court found that the derogation from the ordinary requirement to weigh on landing did not remove that separate control power.
The challenge was brought by the vessel’s master and three fishing and seafood businesses. They argued that the Authority had unlawfully selected the vessel for monitored weighing and that the pier-side system could not accurately weigh the catch without separating water and fish or sorting different species. They also challenged the use of the pier figures in official records when the catch was weighed again at the buyer’s factory.
The vessel was selected partly because the Authority mistakenly believed it had not received a full inspection for two years. The error arose from a computer logging mistake. The judge found that the selection was not unlawful: the Authority could inspect randomly, and there was no evidence of discrimination or improper purpose.
At Killybegs on 12 October 2020, the catch was weighed on a weighbridge without being dewatered, after the master and buyer declined the Authority’s offered water separator. The mackerel figure recorded at the pier was about 509 tonnes, while the factory flow scales later recorded about 450 tonnes. The catch’s herring was not separately weighed at the pier; its figure in the pier record came from the factory weighing. The court noted that the pier weighing was inaccurate because the fish had not been dewatered.
The judge concluded that when a supervised weighing takes place before transport, its figures must be used in the relevant landing and sales documents, even if the fish are weighed again under the control plan after transport. She said responsibility for accurate weighing rested with the operators and buyers. The applicants could not obtain relief over inaccuracies arising from their failure to dewater and sort the catch for the required pier weighing.
The judgment did not decide whether the Authority’s report of the weights to the European Commission was accurate; that report was not before the court. The judge also did not resolve disputes over the effect of dewatering on fish quality or the suitability of the separator. Finding that the applicants had not established an entitlement to judicial review relief, she dismissed the application.