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Joint Committee on the Secondary Legislation of the European Communities debate -
Wednesday, 7 Mar 1979

Community Action in Regard to Marine Pollution arising from the Carriage of Oil.

Senator Robinson is absent. I think Deputy Quinn has undertaken to present her report.

In the absence of Senator Robinson I should like to move the adoption of this report. Unfortunately, I missed the first meeting of that Sub-Committee but participated in the second and final one. It was one of the most interesting Sub-Committees I have attended, largely because of the participation, in camera, let me add, of the officials who participated, which was why I supported Senator Mulcahy’s submissions.

My colleagues around the table have the document in front of them. Essentially what is being recommended in Senator Robinson's report is a series of legislative responses from the domestic parliament here in Dublin in order to respond to the Commission's request for action and to activate proposals put forward by the Council of Ministers of Transport. Without in any way breaching confidences, if one goes through the document, there is stated for example, on page 8:

The Committee therefore considers that the Commission should be encouraged, as an initial step, to incorporate internationally agreed rules in proposals for Community legislation. Ireland being particularly vulnerable has a vital interest in seeing that the problem is successfully tackled and it seems to the Committee that it is imperative that we ratify the relevant international conventions so as to strengthen our case for the adoption of appropriate Community legislation.

We learned that such ratification requires domestic legislation here. Without taking up the time of this committee unnecessarily, our response to this whole area depends entirely on the capacity of the Oireachtas, as a legislative institution, to respond with domestic legislative action. I do not in any way wish to be partisan about this because, in my view, successive Governments carry responsibility for the under resourcefulness of the Department of Transport and Tourism as it now is. This Committee should simply say to the relevant domestic authorities here that in order for Ireland to reach a level of preparedness in the area of combating marine pollution where we are extremely vulnerable, as the Whiddy disaster unfortunately demonstrates, we need to respond immediately in domestic terms with a series of legislative proposals (a) to meet the requests of the Commission and (b) to safeguard our own interests. This, effectively, means that we need more resources in the relevant Government Departments.

Again without being partisan I would like to think—and I believe I speak for all the Members of the Sub-Committee—that we have identified a certain gap in our governmental capacity to respond to the Commission's request. The gap is well documented in this report. I would suggest that this report be sent to the relevant Government Department and their comments asked for.

One recurring theme that runs through all of this is a request for domestic legislation and the difficulties the relevant Departments would have in trying to respond to the drafting of legislation. Therefore, the first thing we can say is let the resources be made available. If anything arises out of our brief but very illuminating study of this problem it is the need the Commission identify the problem. IMCO have identified the areas which require ratification by legislation. We have seen what this means on the ground in the Republic of Ireland. We have identified the problems. It is now really up to the Government in charge to respond by way of domestic legislation.

The ratification of the various conventions should strengthen the hand of the Commission in producing a more comprehensive set of proposals to deal with this problem with the likelihood of getting them accepted.

One thing that emerged is that IMCO proposes certain draft recommendations. Those recommendations will come into force when sufficient numbers of States have ratified them by means of domestic legislation or, alternatively, when a sufficient tonnage of registered merchant shipping under the control of member states has ratified it.

In regard to a previous item on the agenda, when the Republic of Greece joins the Community there will be the necessary percentage of merchant shipping tonnage under the flag of the EEC to ensure that if the EEC, as a group of ten, ratifies any of these conventions they will have the force of international law. So it is of particular interest and immediate urgency.

It would be very difficult to uphold the maritime conventions as an enforcement. I am not altogether convinced that the agreements which have been registered will be necessarily effectively enforced particularly off the west coast of Ireland which is, presumably, the area with which we are most concerned. Certainly I would like to see anything done that can be done to strengthen the Government's hand. We should consider ratifying the conventions and help to bring them into force particularly with the accession of Greece when maritime resources might well be of major use in that very specific respect.

Thank you, Senator. I should on behalf of the Committee have welcomed Senator Conroy who is a new member replacing Senator Eoin Ryan who as I explained has been discharged from the Committee at his own request.

I would like to support the report. It is very detailed and brings a lot of measures on to the table. As Senator Conroy said, there is certainly the difficulty of ensuring that these are implemented. The report seems to tie up quite a number of loopholes. One that came to our notice in the course of the discussion and which is important is the fact that the psychological factors do not seem to be catered for in this report as well as they might be. I mention it at this stage because it is very important and perhaps should be a matter for consideration at some other time. It is important particularly when one considers the enormous tankers berthing at some port. Rest periods at sea are provided for; exercises at sea are provided for and so on. But on landing the same crews actually handle the unloading. Psychologically I think it may well be the case that it would be far better for these crews to be sent on to land for a break and that there would be a separate crew on land to deal with the safety factors at that stage. This is a problem that may be more difficult to deal with but it is a factor. The recent disaster at Whiddy certainly brought it to my mind. As I understand it the same crews actually deal with the unloading on landing. Psychological breaks on ship do not actually get the crews off the ship and this is a deficiency in the regulations and should be considered further at a future date.

I would like to draw attention to the fact that the report mentions the difficulties arising from the extension of our territorial waters. It is difficult enough to police the present three mile limit but with a limit of 12 miles or more it will be even more difficult. I attended a meeting of the Sub-committee where this was discussed. Once more I was worried that maybe the technology required for surveillance and for checking pollution and so on was not developed sufficiently, not only in Ireland but in other countries; in the case of gas content and explosive potential, for example, measuring methods have not been developed. I would hope that we will not, as in the past, just wait and let other people deal with this. We are a maritime country and we stand to lose more so we ourselves should invest more in developing the technology required. I hope that the Departments concerned will ensure that it is the technical people who have the say and not the administrative people.

Of course, in the interim we would be glad to avail ourselves of the technical expertise that would become available to us.

Paragraphs 1 to 28, inclusive, agreed to.

Appendix agreed to.

Draft Report agreed to.

Ordered: To report accordingly.

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