TWO boats were detained by gardai in Donegal over the weekend on suspicion of log-book discrepancies.

At a sitting of Letterkenny District Court on Monday an application was made to Judge Desmond Zaidan to make a 48 hour detention order for the boats.

Garda Paul McCrossan told Judge Desmond Zaidan that at 11pm on July 1 he took over the detention of a fishing vessel berthed in Killybegs from Sea Fisheries Officer, Neil Gallagher.

Garda McCrossan explained that irregularities had been found in the log-book of the French-registered vessel 'Agora'. Outlining further he stated that the log book showed a catch of 5,660 kilos of monkfish, but when the catch was weighed by fisheries officer, the correct total was 6224 kilos, almost half a tonne of discrepancy.

On further questioning by Judge Zaidan Garda McCrossan confirmed that the monkfish would have been fished in European waters and the falsifying of the log book was therefore an offence under EU legislation.

Similarly, Garda Ward explained that he had taken over the detention of another French-registered vessel, the 'Dagmara'. On boarding the vessel at 8.49pm he met with the Master, Olivier Clemont following a detection of under-recording of the boat's catch by Sea Fisheries Officer, John Boyle.

Garda Ward explained that the log-book declaration showed the catch weighed 4,103 kilos but the exact figure should have been 4965 kilos.

Judge Desmond Zaidan asked why a ship would want to falsify these figures, and he was told that it would most likely be to do with quota issues in place to preserve fish stocks, as well as for monetary gain by the ship's owners.

Judge Zaidan was asked to make a 48 hour detention order for the two boats in order to give the Attorney General time to decide which charges should be brought against them.