The Sea Fishing (Restriction on Days at Sea) Order (Northern Ireland) 2003

Interpretation

2.—(1) In this Order –

“Annex XVII” means Annex XVII to Council Regulation (EC) No. 2341/2002 of 20th December 2002 fixing for 2003 the fishing opportunities and associated conditions for certain fish stocks and groups of fish stocks, applicable in Community waters and, for Community vessels, in waters where catch limitations are required(1);

“British fishing boat” means a fishing boat which is registered in the United Kingdom under Part II of the Merchant Shipping Act 1995(2) or is owned wholly by persons qualified to own British ships for the purposes of that part of that Act;

“Regulation 2807/83” means Commission Regulation (EEC) No. 2807/83 of 22nd September 1983 laying down detailed rules for recording information on Member States' catches of fish(3) as last amended by Commission Regulation (EC) No. 1965/2001 of 8th October 2001(4);

“Regulation 2847/93” means Council Regulation (EEC) No 2847/93 of 12th October 1993 establishing a control system applicable to the Common Fisheries Policy(5) as last amended by Council Regulation (EC) No. 2846/98 of 17th December 1998(6);

“equivalent provision” means any provision in any other order made for the purposes of implementing Annex XVII, extending to any part of the United Kingdom which has equivalent effect to a specified provision in this order, proceedings for an offence in respect of which may be taken in any place in the United Kingdom by virtue of section 30(2A) of the Fisheries Act 1981;

“English fishing” boat means a fishing boat which is registered in the register maintained under section 8 of the Merchant Shipping Act 1995 and whose entry in the register specifies a port in England as the port to which the vessel is to be treated as belonging;

“fishing boat” includes any vessel to which Annex XVII applies;

“foreign fishing boat” means a fishing boat which is not a British fishing boat but to which Annex XVII applies;

“Northern Ireland zone” has the same meaning as in the Northern Ireland Act 1998(7);

“relevant British fishing boat” means a British fishing boat which is neither an English nor a Scottish fishing boat nor a Welsh fishing boat;

“Scottish fishing boat” means a fishing boat which is registered in the register maintained under section 8 of the Merchant Shipping Act 1995 and whose entry in the register specifies a port in Scotland as the port to which the vessel is to be treated as belonging?CQ?;

“unused days” at any time within a period identified in Article 3(2), means the number of days in that period calculated in accordance with Article 3, in which a fishing boat is permitted to be absent from port in any of the areas specified in paragraph 2 of Annex XVII while carrying any type of gear specified in paragraph 4 of Annex XVII, minus the number of days in that period in which it has been so absent while carrying that type of gear;

“Welsh fishing” boat means a fishing boat which is registered in the register maintained under section 8 of the Merchant Shipping Act 1995 and whose entry in the register specifies a port in Wales as the port to which the vessel is to be treated as belonging.

(2) In this Order –

(a)“logbook” means the same as in Article 6 of Regulation 2847/93 as amplified by Regulation 2807/83, and, for the purposes of any provision of this Order other than Articles 6 and 11, any reference to a document or logbook includes any –

(i)map, plan, graph or drawing;

(ii)photograph;

(iii)data, howsoever reproduced, communicated via a satellite-based vessel monitoring system established under Article 3.1 of Regulation 2847/93;

(iv)disk, tape, sound track or other device in which sounds or other data (not being visual images) are recorded so as to be capable (with or without the aid of some other equipment) of being reproduced; and

(v)film (including microfilm), negative, tape, disk or other device in which one or more visual images are recorded so as to be capable (as aforesaid) of being reproduced; and

(b)for the purposes of establishing absence from port, absence outside the areas specified in paragraph 2 of Annex XVII shall not be taken into account.

(3) Any information provided to any authority for the purposes of any provision of this Order shall be treated as also provided for the purposes of any equivalent provision.