The Court of Appeal has dismissed a challenge by Killybegs fishing interests to a Sea-Fisheries Protection Authority inspection which required a large catch to be weighed at the quayside in October 2020.
The case concerned the MFV Atlantic Challenge, whose master Noel McDowell had notified a catch of 450,000kg of mackerel and 3,000kg of herring before arriving at Killybegs.
The Authority selected the vessel for inspection and required the entire catch to be weighed on the pier. McDowell objected. The catch was stored in refrigerated sea water and the appellants argued that the available quayside system could not accurately separate water from fish or sort different species without risking damage to the quality of the catch.
The fish were ultimately weighed without being dewatered. A later weighing at the processing factory recorded 449,985kg of mackerel and 12,189kg of herring. The Court of Appeal noted a difference of about 11% to 12% between the quayside and factory figures for mackerel.
An earlier stage of the appeal had been referred to the Court of Justice of the European Union. That court ruled in October 2025 that the Authority retained power under EU fisheries law to require quayside weighing even where an Irish control plan allowed fish to be transported elsewhere for weighing.
The remaining issue was whether exercising that power had nevertheless been unreasonable because of the limitations of the Killybegs equipment.
Mr Justice Gerard Hogan rejected that argument. He said accepting it would effectively have prevented the Authority from carrying out quayside inspections until improved equipment became operational, contrary to the EU fisheries-control regime.
The court accepted that accuracy is important and that the quayside figures overstated the catch because sea water was included. However, that did not make the inspection legally unreasonable.
The appeal was dismissed. The court’s provisional view was that the State parties should recover their costs against the first three appellants, subject to further submissions.