I have notice from Senator Hugh Byrne that on the motion for the Adjournment of the House he proposes to raise the following matter: the recent tragedies in the North Irish Sea where four lives were lost.
Adjournment Matter. - Irish Sea Tragedy.
I am pleased to get the opportunity at last to raise this matter. As all of you and the Minister well know, the incident to which I will refer occurred on 22 November 1990. This is one in a succession of incidents that has caused the loss of life of at least 100 people over a ten-year period. It has also caused the loss of a lot of property, the property of Irish fishermen and of Scottish, Welsh and English fishermen. While I am pleased to see Deputy Noonan here, as Minister for the Marine, nevertheless when I raised this matter last, which was about one and a half years ago, I had the Minister for Foreign Affairs to answer me. I would pose the question, why is it that we do not have any one Department watching this particular issue? As I said, while I am pleased to see Deputy Noonan here, I would have to question the Government's commitment to the elimination of what I would regard as a very serious problem.
The latest tragedy happened on 22 November 1990 and caused the death of four Scottish fishermen. Immediately one might ask, what is my interest in Scottish fishermen? My interest is that this happened in the North Irish Sea. It is well known that it is a common fishing ground for our own fishermen. Many of our own fishermen, as I will outline later on, have been affected by submarine activity in the Irish Sea to date. I am depending on information from The Irish Times and the Irish Independent. I will be quoting occasionally from them. I would like to relate what happened. The accident happened when the Antares, based at Carradale, Kintyre, was fishing off the Isle of Arran. The Plymouth-based hunter killer submarine, HMS Trenchant, reported to its base that it had hit the gear of a fishing boat. The navy said it surfaced and tried, unsuccessfully, to contact by radio two trawlers in the area. It could see “nothing amiss” and left the scene after contacting lifeguards. Here we have a situation where, when the accident occurred, it seems that the submarine came to the surface and saw nothing amiss. It would be very difficult for it to see anything amiss on the surface at that stage since the four fishermen had been drowned and the trawler had been pulled under the sea.
The point I would like to make at this stage is the inconsiderate fashion in which the Ministry of Defence and, particularly, the submarine acted. They were prepared to move away even though they knew full well that they had hit something. They were prepared to move away and leave the rest to God. We all know what happened, that four people were lost. It is known that onshore on the night of 22 November the wives and girlfriends waited for the four fishermen to return. They were only fishing about ten miles off the coast of Scotland. Of course, they never arrived onshore. The Labour MP, a particularly good friend of mine, Mr. George Foulkes, a long time campaigner for better safety measures in fishing grounds, claimed that the tragedy need not have happened. That is a view I share. He had been warning for 18 months that this kind of thing could happen. He had presented many documents to the Department of Transport and to the Department of Defence over ten years predicting what would happen and what eventually did happen.
A large search, involving a naval frigate and a mine sweeper as well as naval helicopters, found pieces of red wreckage, the same colour as the Antares and it was conclusively discovered that it had been snagged by the submarine Trenchant. The many incidents — and there have been some 90 very serious incidents — in which varying numbers of fishermen lost their lives have been logged. That has happened over a period of ten years. During those ten years — I have not time to list all of the different incidents — the Ministry of Defence in Britain refused at all stages to give any information. Only in this case, the case of the Antares and in the case of the Sheralga about which all of us here would know much more, a trawler fishing out of Clogher Head, did the Ministry of Defence admit that they were responsible.
The Ministry of Defence have recently complied with a High Court order to hand over papers which are believed to include logs of submarines which may have caused the trawler Inspire to capsize in the Irish Sea in 1988, with the loss of two lives. Irish Sea fishermen had only just learned of the rules of action drawn up by the British navy for submarine commanders, which apply to vessels fouling fishing gear. The rules begin with the warning that when such contact occurs “the safety of the lives of the fishing vessels crew is of paramount importance and must subsume all other considerations”. That is a very interesting new regulation applied to the Ministry of Defence because heretofore they just snagged the trawler, brought it under, lives were lost and they went away about their business ignoring any damage that might have been caused or any lives that might have been lost. The actions recommended include reducing speed to a minimum possible, returning to periscope depth and establishing radio contact. Communication with fishing vessels is also recommended and the submarine is advised to surface when possible. The rules also urge commanders to resist the temptations to be unnecesarily secretive.
I would like to continue with the help of The Irish Times. They did an in-depth survey of the whole issue. It is absolutely vitally important to put this on record at this stage. The British navy still operate some five fleet submarine vessels with nuclear weapons on board and driven by nuclear reactors and 11 conventional vessels out of the Neptune submarine base at Faslane on the Clyde, a few miles from the scene of last Thursday's accident. The point I would like to make is that here you have nuclear submarines with nuclear weapons on board moving around in the Irish Sea and damaging harmless trawlers and causing loss of life. I would like to say to the Minister that he is well aware, as we all are, that vast amounts of nuclear waste are being transshipped in the Irish Sea to Sellafield. God forbid that it will ever happen that one of these nuclear powered, nuclear carrying submarines will collide with one of those ships involved in the trans-shipment of nuclear waste. People may say that that is over-reacting. I say it is not. I say it is being absolutely sensible. The Irish Government — and I will be criticising them later on — and the British Government seem to suggest that because the submarines are below water they cannot collide. I would like to refer to the 90 accidents that are already logged and well documented both in our own Department and in that of Britain. So it is ridiculous to suggest that it would not happen. Of course, it could happen. The day that that will happen none of us will live to tell the tale. I am saying that that is not an over-reaction. That is a fact of life.
Many of my colleagues, when they heard I was raising this matter today, and particularly those people who live in the maritime counties, said to me that the Irish fisherman is afraid of his life to go to sea because of the dangers lurking in the waters. The fishermen on the west coast are not as afraid as those on the Irish Sea, because that is where most of the traffic is. I said on another occasion that there is as much submarine traffic in the Irish sea as there is vehicular traffic in O'Connell Street at Christmas time. That is not an exaggeration because there you have the French, the Dutch, the Russians, the English and the Americans all playing war games with their submarines. It is interesting that they should still be playing these war games when we are told that the Cold War is over.
To me, at any rate, it seems that the activity in the Irish Sea, from the information I have, particularly from Mr. Bernard Moffatt of the Celtic League in the Isle of Man, shows that the Cold War is far from over. If what is happening in the Irish Sea is any indication, then any suggestion of progress being made towards world peace is an absolute fallacy. If we are on the way towards peace, why is it that, instead of being on the decrease, submarine activity and nuclear activity is on the increase in the Irish Sea?
I think this is the fifth occasion on which I have raised this issue of submarine activity in the Irish Sea. I have always asked the question on those occasions: What have the Irish Government done? I am asking the same question now. What have the Irish Government done since April 1989 when I last raised this issue? Are we so unconcerned about our own fishermen that we will do nothing about the position? It is not enough for the Minister to say, or for the Irish Government to say, that this is happening outside our territorial waters and that we have no say.
Our people are out there earning a livelihood for themselves. Goodness knows, they have enough problems as things stand at present without the added danger of lurking submarines. They are innocent people out there trying to earn a living. They are saying to me that it seems as though we do not give a damn about what happens to them. It has been suggested to me in Kilmore Quay that instead of using steel cable to trawl their nets they are now using nylon so that, if the nets are snagged, the ropes will break and that at least even if they lose that property their lives will be saved.
This kind of situation cannot be allowed to continue. The fact that the Minister of State and not the Minister is in here this evening is also a source of worry to me. I know that the Minister of State is excellent at his job, but nevertheless he does not sit around the Cabinet table, which is where all decisions are made. I would ask the Minister of State, as a friend and as a person interested in all of our fishermen, to carry this message back to the Government in the hope that I will never have to stand up in this House again to say that more lives have been lost and, worse still, to have to say that Irish lives will be lost.
In the catalogue of disaster and incidents that have occurred I would have to say that Irish fishermen have been involved in about 50. It is sad to say that we continue to do absolutely nothing and behave as if our people matter little to us. The British authorities and the Ministry of Defence show scant regard for their own people, because recently they have been the cause of four deaths. I do not know whether that is manslaughter or not, but because they have been warned so often I would have to suggest that it is nothing less than that. I do not want our Government to be involved in that, but I would have to say at this stage that they are siding with the British in keeping this whole business quiet.
I do not want to have to say these things but I live in Wexford at Hook Point, among fishermen who are contacting me every other week about this, even when there is not an incident. I do not raise this only when there is an incident, because I probably would not be allowed. Either the Irish Government are not taking the fishermen seriously or they are not taking me seriously, but there is some breakdown in communications along the line. It is just not good enough. I am asking the Minister of State tonight to carry this message back and to ask the Minister for the Marine, the Minister for Transport and the Taoiseach, who is now Minister for Defence to seek meetings with their counterparts in Britain with a view to ending this terrible activity. I will settle for nothing less than the removal of the submarines from the Irish Sea, which is well known to be a popular fishing ground.
With your permission, a Chathaoirligh, I want to raise a related matter. It relates to submarine activity. In March 1968, which is quite a while ago now, Aer Lingus flight EI 712, the "St. Phelim", went down off Tuscar Rock and to date nobody has given a reason. Because of what has happened in the Irish Sea and because of the fact that the Ministry of Defence in Britain kept quiet for so long, I have every reason to believe that there was a collision in mid-air, whether it was with a missile from a submarine or a missile from some of their onshore ports, I do not know. I do know that the general feeling of all people on the east coast of Ireland and the west coast of Britain is that something happened that we have not heard about. I am asking the Minister of State tonight, not to answer a few questions I want to put, but if he would ask the Government, on my behalf and on behalf of all fishermen and all interested people, if they will reopen an inquiry into that particular incident. I want answers to the following questions. Were tests with surface to air missiles being carried out at Aberporth in the last six months of 1967 and the first six months of 1968? I have every reason to believe that that was the case. How many test firings were made in that period? Was control of any launched missile subsequently lost? Was control of any air launched target lost? I think this is possibly the answer to the question, that it may not have been hit by a missile. My own impression is that it was hit by an air-launched target. What was the range of any surface-to-air missiles under test? When will range records for the period be made public? The reason I am asking these questions is that to date no information has been given. I ask these questions in my own interest and in the interests of people who have shown interest and concern over the years. Even for the sake of the air crew who had responsibility for that aircraft, is it not time that their names were cleared?
Limerick West): I am glad to have the opportunity to respond to this debate and that Senator Byrne has raised this important matter. He posed a number of questions at the end of his contribution. I would need to have had notice of those questions if I were to have answered them at this stage. The question under discussion reads: the recent tragedy in the North Irish sea where four lives were lost. That has no relation at all to the questions that were raised. However, I am prepared to let Senator Byrne have the replies in due course. I would not attempt to answer them this evening because I would need information and in my response I do have to give accurate information. For that reason, I will not attempt to answer them because I could not guarantee the accuracy of my replies.
I want to say on behalf of the Minister that, arising from my due responsibilities for the safety of life at sea and, on the other hand, for the development of the fishing industry, I have expressed in a press statement, released on Friday, 23 November, my concern at the incident involving a fishing boat in the Firth of Clyde on 22 November. I explained that I would be taking a keen interest in the outcome of any inquiry established to investigate the incident. I should like to say that those with competence in the matter should be conscious of the safety of all seafarers and the absolute necessity of taking all measures to avoid loss of life and damage to fishing vessels or gear. I would add that fishermen in Donegal and the Irish Sea have in the past expressed concern about the danger from submarines in their respective fishery areas and they are entitled to the highest safety standard being applied by all.
The loss of the Antares took place outside Irish territorial waters. I understand from a statement made by Mr. Archibald Hamilton, Minister of State at the UK Ministry of Defence, that a Royal Navy submarine HMS Trenchant, operating in the Clyde area in the early hours of Thursday, 22 November, surfaced to investigate unexplained sounds on her starboard side. Mr. Hamilton reported to the House of Commons that the crew recovered a length of trawl cable from its casing and, assuming that it might have snagged the gear of a fishing vessel, tried unsuccessfully to contact neighbouring fishing vessels on the VHF radio.
The MoD statement indicated that the submarine remained on the surface and conducted a search for some two and a half hours and, seeing nothing untoward, continued her operations. The UK coast-guard, having been contacted by the Royal Navy, initiated inquiries in an attempt to account for all vessels which may have been in the area. It was later established that the FB Antares was missing in the search area. Following a search and rescue operation the vessel was discovered on the sea bed in the early hours of the morning of Friday, 23 November, and the four crew are still missing, presumed dead. The UK Ministry of Defence announced today that work is taking place to raise the Antares from the bed of the Firth of Clyde.
Inquiries are to be conducted by both the UK Department of Transport and the Royal Navy and it would, therefore, be inappropriate for me to speculate in advance on the outcome of such inquiries. However, I wish to reassure this House that all appropriate action that I can take will be taken. Ireland's national control over foreign vessels ends at the limit of our territorial waters. Inside that limit, vessels must travel on the surface and show identification. Beyond that limit, vessels operate in international waters, which do not have jurisdiction. Vessels travel freely through international waters.
I am concerned that every possible step should be taken to ensure that submarines operate in a responsible fashion vis-á-vis fishing vessels. To that end, and to minimise the danger posed to fishing vessels at sea by submerged submarines, my Department brought the matter to the attention of the International Maritime Organisation, which is the London based United Nations specialised agency responsible for safety at sea. A resolution was, as a result, passed by the IMO Assembly in November 1987, recommending that a submerged submarine, if information on the presence of a fishing vessel and its gear is available, should as far as possible keep out of the way of that fishing vessel and any gear connected to it unless the submarine is disabled.
In the aftermath of the most recent tragedy I have asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs to continue to avail of every opportunity to raise in the appropriate international fora the dangers which submarines pose to fishing vessels. I have also asked him to voice in the relevant bilateral contacts the concerns of our fishermen about submarine activity in the fishing grounds and other waters around our coasts. As Senator Byrne knows, An Taoiseach and the Minister for Foreign Affairs have raised this issue in the past at the United Nations. Furthermore, my Cabinet colleague, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, has on a number of occasions raised incidents involving submarines bilaterally with the authorities in the countries involved and will continue to do so. In short, a Chathaoirligh, my Department will continue to do everything possible to enhance the safety of vessels at sea whether in territorial or international waters.
The Seanad adjourned at 8.55 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Thursday, 6 December 1990.