I too welcome the chance to speak on this Bill.
I welcome the attention given by the Minister of State to the issue of TBTs. If we can add a small percentage of the world's population to the movement to address a serious issue and push the numbers up to a stage where we will see a global ban on the use of certain anti-fouling agents which have serious long-term environmental effects, we will have done a good day's work. I am proud to add my voice to the debate on this issue.
The Bill goes to the core of what my party is about. It promotes an ecosystem approach to managing our resources and balanced management of the natural resources we share and use, where a range of different species interact with each other and with the physical and meteorological climate in a way which is complex, self-regulating and self-balancing. As one of the species in that chain, human beings must be careful how we affect and disrupt that ecosystem and its balance because our actions may come back to affect us in ways we had not considered, and do us real harm.
Had I spoken here in the 1960s, 1970s or even in the early 1980s about the problem of TBTs, I might have been laughed at and told I was exaggerating. Members might have wondered what possible damage a lick of paint on a boat could do. They would not have known about my recent meeting with officials of the Minister of State's Department regarding dredging, which is also the responsibility of his Department. When the problem of dredging the harbour in Castletownbere was raised, the officials told me that because the harbour had a high concentration of TBT nothing could be done in the area without spending incredible amounts of money extracting highly toxic pollutants from the water. This is a small example of how the misuse of a substance can come back to affect the development of our society, infrastructure and economy in practical and real ways.
The Bill is an example of the introduction of ecological thinking into world and national governance. That cannot come quickly enough.
The Minister mentioned recent meetings which occurred, fortuitously, in Wexford. The latest edition of The Irish Skipper contains several articles in which the scientific community draw attention to the need to take an environmental and ecological approach to our industry. The Minister of State referred to the recent conference in Wexford. The EurOCEAN 2004 conference was recently held in Galway although, unfortunately, I was not aware of it until it had finished. At the conference, 500 scientists looked at how we affect the marine ecosystem. I am informed by The Irish Skipper that a conference was held in Dublin Castle, as part of the European Presidency. I did not receive notice of this conference. One of the regrettable features of the Presidency has been that Irish people and legislators have not been invited to the many excellent conferences which have been held throughout the country and where we might have listened to some of the world’s leading scientists. The Presidency has been run behind closed doors. It has not been an open process. I managed to attend one of two conferences but I found it remarkably difficult to find out where they were being held, how I could get to them and what their agenda would be. These conferences should have been open. I would love to have attended the 13th international dialogue meeting of ISES on the advancement of scientific advice for an ecosystem approach to management and many people in the Irish fishing industry and environmental movement should also have attended the conference to listen to the leading scientists in the world discussing this new ecosystem and ecological approach to managing our resources.
This need for an ecological management of our natural resources has been presented to us for 30 or 40 years. As a child I watched Jacques Cousteau on television give the same message we are receiving now. It is almost as if we have continued to sit in front of our television sets and hear people telling us we are destroying our environment. The message about the effect on the marine environment had a particularly strong effect on me. People were telling me we were destroying our marine environment and we must be careful about how we operate our fishing industries and allow pollution because they have a serious long-term effect. However, still we have not addressed this problem. It is as though we are still sitting in front of our television sets and watching it happen. If this legislation is one small part of our response to this problem and a small example of how we are getting up from our lounge seats and doing something, I am very happy to approve it.
At the EurOCEAN 2004 conference in Galway, Professor Carlo Heip said that our knowledge of marine biodiversity is minute. We have little knowledge, for example, of the number of species existing. We are beginning to see the huge medical, economic and pharmacological potential of newly discovered species, particularly in deeper waters of which we have very little knowledge. Professor Heip says we need a greater knowledge and scientific analysis of that ecosystem. The first step in treating the ecosystem carefully is to gain knowledge of what is going on. Unfortunately, that knowledge is still very scant. While I commend the Irish Government's recent analysis we have a long way to go. The sea-bed survey is a good example of a start in the right direction.
Professor Heip went on to say that marine biodiversity is under continuing serious global threat. It is undermined by fishing, pollution, the introduction and transfer of exotic species to new environment and global climate change, something which will soon affect our own environment, and we are not properly addressing those threats. An example in that regard is our treatment of the environment in a manner which suggests we do not know what we are doing. One of the strongest examples recently is the move by a number of European fleets, including ours, into deep sea trawling to catch fish with a long life without knowledge of the effect of such actions on populations in terms of taking out an adult population which will not be replaced and its effects on deep sea waters which we do not understand. Our initial reaction may be that because the Atlantic is a large ocean, it does not matter that we take a certain number of fish from it. However, it does matter if it has implications for how the ecosystem works.
The current situation regarding ballast waters is also an issue of sea pollution. Perhaps the Minister of State will clarify if this legislation will apply to pollution that might occur from the discharge of ballast waters, an issue causing serious concerns? It is interesting to note from the magazine before me an example of where a mistreatment of the ecosystem or the introduction of a new species can have a serious affect. The Corrib system is under threat from the possible spread of the zebra sea mussel. That is an example of how a small change could have massive effects on our local marine environment.
Another example is our management of the aquaculture industry in terms of the effects of sea lice on fin-fish farming. Perhaps the idea to develop the salmon fishing industry was a brilliant one in terms of developing a valuable food resource. However, those involved did not, perhaps, take on board the ecological understanding of how we develop those resources. What we are now witnessing is ecology biting back. Fin-fish farming is an incredibly difficult area in which to make money. All the scientists involved now agree that the effect of the high pest population living on the farmed one is affecting our indigenous wildlife resources.
Following the "Prime Time" revelations last year regarding activities in the Irish fish-farming industry, members of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Communications, Marine and Natural Resources, were able to obtain agreement from all the industries and Government scientists that this was an area in which the management in a particular manner of one species or another was having an effect on the ecosystem and our wildlife species. We had to take that point on board. It is also another example of where we have not taken an ecological approach to the management of our resources.
I was pleased the Minister of State was able to encourage the European Maritime Safety Agency out of Brussels. The trip did it the world of good. What fortuitous coincidence that, of all the countries and counties in the world, it picked north County Wexford to visit. It could not have picked a better location than Gorey to hold its meeting. I commend the Minister on his achievement in that regard.
Another article in my recent edition of The Irish Skipper referred to the location of the new Irish Coastguard development agency in, as luck would have it, County Louth, the Minister’s home county, a remarkable coincidence in which I have no doubt the officials were deeply involved. While I welcome and can understand the politics of holding the meeting in Gorey, there is a question to be answered regarding the manner in which civil servants are to be relocated throughout the country in terms of whether it will benefit joined-up thinking in the governance of the country. I do not yet know where officials from the Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources will be located. I am not sure if they will be decentralised to Cavan, Clonakilty or elsewhere. I am not sure it is wise to do this to many different arms of State which must interact with each other. I presume the coastguard section will have to have regular meetings with officials in the Department. I am not sure if we will get required joined-up thinking by relocating Departments at opposite ends of the country. I am not sure either if the process is being handled in a manner which is fair to civil servants and which will provide us with the best use of resources in the remarkable people that are the civil servants of this State.
I regret the location of sections of Departments to Ministers' counties. Sustainable Energy Ireland is being relocated to the Minister's home county along with the Irish Coastguard development agency. That may well be the best location given it is close to Dublin. Thankfully, it is close to the sea and we are not in the embarrassing Cavan factor in this regard. If I were a civil servant, I would be carefully following ministerial reshuffles more keenly than those on the Fianna Fáil back benches. That is not appropriate.
Having addressed my concerns regarding the relocation of the coastguard service, it is good we are considering a centralised management and, hopefully, reaction system to oil spillages or other natural disasters that may occur particularly close to our sensitive shores. I regret what the Minister had to say about the proposal Ireland, along with many other countries, put to the IMO for a restriction in certain categories of shipping. I understood Ireland was originally seeking its own north and western shores. However, I understand the Portuguese and Spanish may also wish the restriction extended to their waters. I regret also to learn from the content of the Minister's speech that the IMO has ruled out that proposal. The Minister of State said the special committee established to investigate the navigational consequences in that regard will return. Perhaps he will clarify that matter in his response.
The Minister of State said the IMO did not accede to the request to ban tankers as proposed. However, he also said the expert navigation committee is expected to report to the MEPC later this year. I am interested to hear the Minister of State's view on whether the IMO is ruling out such a ban. We were fortunate last year in that the incident in Donegal involving the Princess Eva did not lead to serious pollution. That incident should strengthen the case for the protection of the sensitive ecosystems of which those on the west coast are fortunate to be the managers and carers. It would have been an international and national tragedy had some 55,000 tonnes of crude oil washed up on the beaches of Donegal which are unique in the whole of western Europe. I have never visited anywhere with such attractive and dramatic local ecosystems. Had those beaches been polluted for many years by a discharge of 55,000 tonnes of oil, not only our wildlife but our tourism industry would have been devastated. I would have thought the close call regarding the Princess Eva made our case of the IMO all the more compelling. I am interested to hear if the Minister of State believes the IMO will be willing to accede to our request in that regard.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing. However, I hope I will not be back here in future years saying we warned of the necessity to purchase a towing vessel to help cope with potential future accidents. I hope I am proved wrong. One of the first reports into which I had to delve on taking up my position as Opposition spokesperson on the marine dealt with the need for a maritime towing vessel. It was a remarkably well produced document which contained scientific analysis as to the likelihood of marine accidents involving discharges of pollution in Irish waters. That research was undertaken in a clear and accurate manner. What was disturbing was its ability to predict reasonably accurately the likely consequences of 1.5 serious incidents a year within our waters, possibly involving quite significant discharges. If one considers the years during which the study was carried out one will note there was a series of incidents that would have corroborated that statistic. Given the volume of maritime traffic passing through our waters, it seems almost certain that we will have a serious incident at some stage. It is remarkable that we are not abiding by the recommendations of the report and spending €10 million to €15 million — I cannot remember the exact figure — on a towing vessel, which could possibly be operated in co-operation with the UK Government. It is a poor investment decision on the part of this State because if there is a problem, we may well look back and claim that the saving of this small amount of money was not wise in the long run.
I commend the officials I have mentioned, who are no doubt busy packing their bags or scanning the State for the Department to which they want to relocate to suit their children's educational needs or the other needs that unfortunately govern our lives. They are to be commended for the work they have put into this Bill which is remarkably detailed and serves as an excellent example of the important legislation we require. It is an example of our getting up off our TV seats — I will put it that way — and starting to legislate for an ecological approach to protecting our natural resources.
In my two years as an Opposition Member, I noted that we considered a series of Bills addressing similar issues in this area, and in most cases addressing international protocols which we were to implement. I am sure this legislative process, which is complex and drawn out, has been difficult for the Minister of State and his officials. I regret that some of the Bills were not consolidated into one so we could have addressed some of the more international implications in a more holistic, co-ordinated manner. I differ from the Minister in terms of how I would manage this issue. Bearing in mind the intent of this Bill, I very much commend it to the House and commend the Government for bringing it forward.
Let me return to the topic of TBT. I understand from the Minister of State's presentation and the content of the Bill that we must address the banning of such substances ourselves within the European Union. We are now involved in the long and difficult clean-up associated with their use in the past.
Perhaps the Bill may not have an immediate effect. It might have an effect in some very distant port where regulations are not as strong and where concern for the environment tussles with concern for people's survival in many cases. Such ports may not be able to apply the standards we are now demanding of them. However, one of the lessons one learns from taking an ecological approach to politics is that we live in one world that is in itself an integrated, complex and, in a sense, breathing ecosystem, and that we have responsibility as legislators to adopt a global approach to all our work. "Think globally and act locally" has been a slogan of the Green Party for a long time. I very much welcome the chance to take such an approach in praising this legislation.