Imagine you are a dairy farmer and you have exceeded your milk quota, and you find yourself looking at the turret of an Army tank outside your window. Uniformed inspectors armed with satellite information on your activities search your milking parlour. You are placed under detention, handed over to the Garda, and your herd will have to wait until your solicitor arranges a bail bond.
Or imagine you are a self-employed businessperson on your way to work. Before leaving the house in the morning you are inspected by a garda. In your office you are monitored by satellite control. Before going home there is another inspection. The State authorisation for trading requires you fill out copious complicated forms every week.
It may sound surreal, but this is the life of a tuna skipper who may have already taken great risks in steaming up to 400 miles south of the Cork and Kerry coasts in search of a seasonal catch. The tuna fishery extends down towards the Bay of Biscay off the Spanish coast and is mainly in international waters.
In arresting Irish boats fishing for tuna the Naval Service is obliged to enforce flawed regulations that have already been subject to an EU Court of Justice challenge. Currently, the new patrol ship, LE Rois in, is en route, with EU inspectors on board, to the tuna grounds.
This year it is far easier for the Naval Service to track the Irish boats, and because the tuna shoals are still south of the 200-mile limit, the Irish patrol ships can only board Irish vessels anyway. For the first time, most of the 18strong Cork and Kerry tuna fleet are carrying black box satellite monitors on board, as a condition of their licence. It gives an instant latitude/longitude. There isn't even any need for an Air Corps search.
It took years for Irish fishing vessels to become involved in the tuna fishery, first recognised as a new opportunity for an underdeveloped Irish fleet by Mr John Glude, adviser to the late President John F. Kennedy. State funding was invested in encouraging Irish skippers to try it out. The albacore, one of several species of tuna, normally lives in tropical and warm temperate seas, but its range extends to the cool temperate zones of the northern Atlantic.
IT seemed to make so much sense for those skippers/owners who spent five figure sums to re-equip their vessels for the short season.
Prices were good in French and Spanish tuna canneries, and the fish is not subject to quota, as it is generally found in international waters. However, Spain, which dominated the European market and used a less efficient form of catching - trolling with pole and line - didn't like the interest shown by fishermen in France, Cornwall and south-west Ireland.
What was worse for the Spaniards was that the same Irish, French and Cornish boats were using more efficient catching methods. With US backing, it lobbied successfully for an EU ban on driftnet use, citing the harmful effect on dolphins. Ifremer, the French marine research agency, and a House of Lords scientific committee found no evidence to back this up.
The Irish Whale and Dolphin Group, which carried out a survey with the Irish South and West Fishermen's Organisation (IS&WFO) a few years ago, found that 93 per cent of the driftnet catch was tuna alone, with only 4 per cent discards. Yet the ban came into force, with a deadline of 2002, and a phased restriction of 2.5km in net length.
The Irish Government was almost caught napping, but in February, 1998, the marine minister, Dr Woods, issued a statement pledging the State's "fundamental opposition" to a ban which could not be "scientifically justified". He gave the Government's support to a case taken by France to the European Court of Justice.
Earlier this year that case was deemed to be inadmissible for lack of evidence. The informed view is there are still grounds for taking a specific case to Luxembourg.
The tuna fishery is worth £6 million annually to the south-west, and the economy stands to lose this when the driftnet ban comes into force. However, this row is not just about tuna alone, but about the highly politicised nature of the EU Common Fisheries Policy and the lack of trust in surveillance across community waters.
"Last week's arrest, the fourth in so many weeks, was the last straw," Mr Jason Whooley of the IS&WFO said. "Why focus on one particular fishery, when we are witnessing so much illegal activity by foreign vessels engaged in catching other species within Irish waters?"
The activity of flagships, mainly Spanish vessels fishing off the Irish quota for other species, is one such bone of contention. Not only have they been held responsible for "fishing out" certain zones, but they have been accused of forcing other vessels, including Irish, off these grounds.
Meanwhile, State-sponsored trials have been taking place on alternative methods to the driftnet for tuna. So far the returns have been disappointing. And as one skipper remarked at the weekend, "We could never sound too cheerful. If it worked, the EU would surely find a reason to ban it, too."