Vol. 443 No. 9
18 Ms McManus asked the Minister for the Marine if he intends to bring forward proposals for a more effective system of inspection of sea traffic passing through our offshore waters, especially in view of the high volume of such traffic and the views expressed at the international meeting of maritime authorities in Dublin that random port inspections had failed to reduce the casualty rate at sea due to the use of flags of convenience.
The inspection of ships to ensure compliance with internationally agreed standards, and which is known as Port State Control, is the first line of defence against casualties and pollution. It will continue to be so until international standards are properly and consistently applied by all flag States.
It is also the case that no system of Port State Control can be fully effective without co-operation between states of a particular region. International safety conventions provide the basis for such inspections, but the key framework is the Paris Memorandum of Understanding on Port State Control which has been in operation since 1982. This is an agreement between Ireland and 14 other European countries as well as Canada. Its function is to operate as a harmonised and co-ordinated system of inspection by the Port States and to target and identify deficiencies. It is estimated that about 80 per cent of ships entering Paris MOU ports are inspected at least once a year. The most recent annual report shows that over 45 per cent of the nearly 15,000 inspections carried out in 1992 revealed deficiencies of varying degrees. Some 5 per cent were so deficient they had to be detained.
European Port State Control has undoubtedly been an effective weapon in our efforts to tackle the global problem of sub-standard shipping. It has its limitations, however, and there is general agreement among members that the system needs to be strengthened and extended. A Ministerial Conference on Port State Control will be held in Copenhagen next September to agree improvements to the system. Ireland is fully supportive of these initiatives.
In addition, the EU is also working on proposals to improve enforcement of many of the existing practices of Port State Control. I agree that better enforcement is vital if Port State Control is to be more effective and Ireland is actively involved in the work now underway to bring the EU proposals to fruition.
I thank the Minister for his reply and wish him well in his efforts to tighten up the inspection system of vessels. Will he agree that measures to deal with ships which fly a flag of convenience is one of the basic ways of tackling this problem? Experience has shown that vessels which have gone aground or sunk with very high casualties or created major environmental damage have been operated by crews who were not trained, extremely badly paid and could not understand each other because they came from different countries and did not speak the same language. Until we tackle the issue whereby ships sail under a flag of convenience — this is used by major shipping companies to employ cheap labour—we have little hope of coming to grips with this awful problem.
I agree that this matter needs to be tackled. We became a party to the Paris Memorandum on Understanding on Port State Control in 1982 with 14 other European countries as well as Canada. The Deputy asked if we target ships which fly a flag of convenience. Under the Memorandum all Port States pay special attention to ships of specified flags which have a poor safety record. Last year Ireland inspected 82 such ships, of which more than 70 per cent were found to have deficiencies. Targeting specified flag states for inspection is a major recent development. As the Deputy correctly said, it recognises that failings may lie not only with the operators of the sub-standard ship but also with the supervision and control exercised by her flag State.
Some months ago Ireland was represented at an International Maritime Organisation conference by the Minister of State, Deputy Gerry O'Sullivan. It was revealed at the conference that the standard of personnel on some of the ships which fly a flag of convenience are so badly trained they cannot even be integrated on board the ship—they come from different countries, are, through no fault of theirs, badly trained and cannot speak the same language. This shows the seriousness of the matter. The problems continue to exist but we, with other countries, are attempting to resolve them. It will be some time before the matter is finally resolved.
