THE manager of the Southern Regional Fisheries Board, Mr James Rogers, has welcomed the publication by the Minister of State for the Marine of a consultancy report on the board and has said he "personally does not disagree" with any of its findings or recommendations.
The report recommends a commission be appointed to take over the board's key functions of protection, conservation and management. The board has been given a fortnight's notice of this by the Minister, Mr Eamon Gilmore, and the commission is expected to be appointed by the end of the month.
The report does not address a Garda investigation into the affairs of the board, a file on which is with the Director of Public Prosecutions.
Speaking, to The Irish Times yesterday, Mr Rogers said he declined to comment on views expressed in the report by board members, as they are his employers. However, he regretted that only 11 of the members had made contact with the report's author, Mr Dermot Rochford, who was charged with carrying out the consultancy study by Mr Gilmore in November.
"I look forward, as do the rest of, the staff, to making the commission's task as easy and productive as it possibly can be, in what obviously continues to be an unusual but challenging job for us all", Mr Rogers said. As regards the Garda investigation, Mr Rogers said that he was debarred by the board from commenting.
Mr Rochford had been appointed as an expert by the Minister of State and had demonstrated just that, Mr Rogers said.
The Rochford report has been welcomed by two TDs who have followed the Southern Regional Fisheries Board case Mr Des O'Malley (PD) and Mr Austin Deasy (FG) and by the Irish Fishermen's Organisation (IFO) and a former board chairman who first raised the issue at official level, Mr Declan Hearne.
Mr O'Malley said the appointment of a commission to take over and carry out most of the board's functions would help to resolve in time some of the serious problems affecting the workings of the board and its management.
However, Mr O'Malley expressed concern about the delay in a decision on the Garda investigation by the DPP, and called on the Department of the Marine to explain why it had taken so long to act. "It is hoped that a decision [by the DPP] will be forthcoming without further delay and that the appropriate prosecutions will be brought, arising out of the full Garda investigation that has taken place," Mr O'Malley said.
The Department of the Marine should explain what he termed its "prolonged inaction", given that the then Minister for the Marine was written to in December 1987, by the then board chairman, Mr Hearne, outlining serious matters that had come to light.
"His complaint, like all the others, was ignored", Mr O'Malley said. He gave credit to Mr Gilmore for taking the matter so seriously.
Mr Deasy welcomed the commission appointment "as a progressive step forward for the fishing communities of the region". The Minister of State had, no alternative in this regard.
Mr Hearne, who served as chairman between 1982 and 1984, 1986 to 1989 and as vice chairman from 1991 to 1992, congratulated Mr Gilmore for acting decisively and paid tribute to the tenacity of Mr Michael Hickey, the southern board officer who made claims which led to the Garda investigation, and who is out on sick pay due to injuries sustained in the course of his duty.
Mr Hickey said he was debarred from commenting, but a member of his family told The Irish Times he was relieved the matter was reaching a conclusion. He was happy the Minister of State had fulfilled a promise to pursue the issue, the relative said.
The IFO said the transfer of central functions, such as fisheries protection, should lead to an improved relationship between the board and commercial fishermen.
A negative approach taken by governments to date on commercial fishing had resulted in friction and had been an expensive failure, Mr Frank Doyle, the secretary general of the IFO said.
