Mussel seed fishermen not entitled to State compensation, rules High Court

The compensation case came before the High Court where Mr Justice Charles Meenan today rejected all their claims because, in his view, the law prevented any remedy being provided to them.

However, he said, the fact remained that for many years the State permitted Northern Ireland-registered vessels to fish for mussel seed unlawfully "to the detriment" of the industry.

He added:

"Thus it cannot be said the plaintiff fishermen were well served by the State."

In the 2016 Supreme Court decision, it was found Northern Irish mussel vessels fishing in our waters was unlawful because the harvesting of mussel seed constituted the exploitation of a natural resource belonging to the State.

Northern Irish mussel vessels had enjoyed this privilege under a 1965 cross-border co-operation deal between agricultural/fishery authorities in Dublin and Belfast called the "Voisinage Agreement".

The four fishermen were among a number who invested in mussel seeding fishing in the 1990s when its economic potential became apparent.

However, they claimed that as a result of "aggressive" fishing by the Northern Irish vessels and because of being given fishing allocations that were too small, the businesses were not viable. They said this resulted in significant losses following major investment which had been encouraged by the State.

Mussel fishing involves special vessels dredging the sea for mussel seed which is then "transplanted" to aquaculture sites until the seeds mature into full-grown mussels. One of the vessels in this case cost €3.45m.

Following their Supreme Court victory, the case by the four - Paul Barlow of Woodstown Bay Shellfish, Dunmore East, Waterford; Michael Crowley of Riverbank Mussels, Killinick, Wexford; Gerard Kelly of Fresco Seafoods and Tardrum Fisheries, Greencastle, Donegal; and Alex McCarthy of Halcome Merchants, Kildimo, Limerick - continued in the High Court in relation to their claim for damages.

The case was against the Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources, the Registrar General of Fishing Boards and the State.

Among their claims were breach of constitutional rights, negligence, breach of duty, and breach of legitimate expectation.

They also claimed unlawful delegation of the role of allocating of how much mussel seed each vessel could harvest to a body called the Seed Mussel Advisory Committee (SMAC).

The fishermen, in applying for allocations, decided to bypass the SMAC because of the involvement of officials from Northern Ireland on that committee.

They claimed they were not receiving sufficient allocations from the SMAC. The took part in "protest fishing" in Northern Irish waters to highlight the unfairness of the 1965 Vosinage Agreement which did not allow vessels from here to fish in their waters.

The defendants denied their claims.

Mr Justice Meenan found if the Northern Irish vessels had not been fishing in territorial waters, there would have been additional mussel seed available for fishermen here.

However, there was insufficient evidence of how much extra would have been available if that had not been happening or how much of the extra might have been fished by other local boats.

While the manner in which allocations of seed was made to the four might be open to criticism, the evidence showed, for the most part, the amount of seed they fished fell short of their respective allocations.

There was also no evidence to quantify the claim the Minister failed to manage the mussel seed resource appropriately even if it had been established he had done so.

He found no breach of constitutional rights because the four could not be said to have a proprietary interest in mussel seed which is a State resource.

The State did not have a duty of care to manage that resource in order to protect the fishermen's commercial interests and therefore there was no negligence.

He also rejected the claim that they had a legitimate expectation the State would act in accordance with law in relation to the allocation of mussel seed or that there was unlawful delegation of that role to the SMAC.

He further rejected their claim, under the European Convention on Human Rights, in relation to property rights because the property in question belongs to the State.