The Court of Appeal has dismissed Kevin Kielthy’s appeal against the rejection of his claims for financial losses connected with his fishing vessel, the MFV Morgensonne. It found he had not shown that errors in the vessel’s registration records caused him to stop fishing, and that his claims over a proposed fish-waste dumping permit did not meet the legal requirements for compensation.
The judgment, delivered by Ms Justice Ní Raifeartaigh on 22 October 2021, upheld the High Court’s dismissal of the action. The appeal concerned alleged negligence, negligent misrepresentation and breach of legitimate expectation by the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Ireland and the Attorney General. The Court of Appeal did not award damages. It proposed that the respondents receive the costs of the appeal, subject to Mr Kielthy’s right to seek a hearing on costs within 14 days.
Mr Kielthy argued that incorrect engine details on registration certificates issued between 2000 and 2005 prevented him from fishing legally. He said this reduced his fishing income and left him short of the fishing activity required for a decommissioning grant. The Court of Appeal upheld the trial judge’s finding that the registration error did not cause him to stop fishing. It said his explanations had changed over time, and contemporaneous correspondence pointed to difficulties in the scallop-fishing industry and his plans to change the vessel’s use. The court concluded that he had not established the required link between the registration issue and his alleged losses.
A separate claim concerned a plan to use the vessel to dump fish offal at sea on behalf of fish processors. Mr Kielthy said he refitted the vessel in reliance on State representations and was not told promptly that the plan could not proceed. The judgment records that the proposed scheme was ultimately found incompatible with EU law. The Court of Appeal held that a legitimate expectation could not support a claim for something the State was prohibited from doing under EU law. It also found insufficient proof of significant refitting costs and that the negligence claim had not addressed key requirements for imposing liability on a public authority for economic loss.
The judgment also recounts earlier proceedings over a €250,000 decommissioning award by an Appeals Officer. The Supreme Court overturned the High Court’s refusal to quash that award in 2014. The Court of Appeal said the earlier findings did not determine the facts in this separate damages action.