With your permission, a Cheann Comhairle, I propose to take Questions Nos. 16 to 24 together.
I have been following very closely the progress of events in Britain since the stranding of the Torrey Canyon, and my Department has maintained contact with the British authorities. I am advised that the danger of Irish beaches being affected by oil from the tanker is remote. The nearest Irish beaches are north-west of the oil spillage. The tidal movements in the area of the casualty are predominantly west to east and vice versa. South-east winds, which might counteract the tidal flow, tend to be short-lived and occur much less frequently in April than in March. In the unlikely event of the oil reaching our coast in large quantities, the task of preventing or remedying pollution of beaches would not be a matter for a particular agency such as Bord Fáilte, but would call for the employment of all available State and local authority resources.
With a view to getting all available information about the action necessary in such an eventuality, I arranged for officers of the Departments of Transport and Power, Defence and Local Government to visit the scene and to report back to me. Inquiries have also been made about the practical measures planned by the public authorities in France, Belgium and the Netherlands. Because of the unprecedented nature of the Torrey Canyon casualty, there is a general lack of experience as to the most effective and desirable methods of combating the ensuing oil pollution, and it is, therefore, particularly important that all lessons possible should be learned from the course of events in Britain and the thinking of other countries concerned.
The British Government have asked the Council of the Inter-Governmental Maritime Consultative Organisation, known as IMCO, to convene an extraordinary session on this question in the immediate future. Ireland is a member of the organisation and would, of course, strongly support any practicable proposals which might emerge in due course.
A Convention on Oil Pollution was drawn up by IMCO in 1954, and revised in 1962. These instruments have been accepted by the Government but they do not provide a solution for the present problem. The Convention aims at reducing the risk of oil pollution by making it an offence for tankers or other vessels to discharge oil or oily waste into the sea within certain prohibited zones. It provides for the imposition of penalties on masters or owners who deliberately discharge oil, but it does not cover the case of accidental discharges such as the Torrey Canyon, nor does it touch on the problem of how to dispose of the oil once it has got into the water.
When the Gulf Oil Company's proposal to set up an oil terminal at Whiddy Island in Bantry Bay was first mooted, the question of preventing possible oil pollution in the area was raised by officers of my Department with the company and the Commissioners of Irish Lights. This matter is still under active consideration and everything possible will be done to ensure the maximum degree of safety from pollution.