I move:
That the Dáil approves of the International Load Line Convention with Final Protocol, signed at London on the 5th day of July, 1930, a copy of which was laid on the Table of the Dáil on the 9th day of August, 1933, and recommends the Executive Council to take the necessary steps to ratify the said Convention and Final Protocol.
This Convention is the first international agreement on the loadlines of merchant ships. An international standard for the loadlines of ships has long been considered a desirable thing amongst the maritime nations. A conference was contemplated in 1914 but the proposal fell through owing to the European war. The matter then remained in abeyance until 1927 when it was again taken up, and eventually an International Loadline Conference was convened in 1930 and produced the present convention. The standard rules laid down by the convention will replace over a dozen different standards, and when the new standard is ratified generally there will be uniform loadline rules—which means uniform safety rules—for cargo ships of any size all over the world.
The convention will not represent any vital departure from present practice in An Saorstát. Loadlines will remain more or less in the same positions as before, but a simpler system of calculation will be available to surveyors and our vessels will have the advantage of holding International Loadline Certificates which will be accepted in all countries. A Bill entitled "Merchant Shipping (Safety and Load Line Conventions) Bill, 1933," amending our merchant shipping legislation in order to give effect to the provisions of this convention and the Safety of Life at Sea Convention was passed through both Houses of the Oireachtas last session. The Bill has now been enacted.
Agreed.