asked the Minister for Transport and Power if he will take immediate steps to mitigate the discharge of waste oil by ships off the south-east coast, as many sea birds are dying in this area because they have been in contact with such waste oil.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Discharge of Waste Oil off South-East Coast.
11.
Oil pollution of the sea is an international problem which cannot be solved by this or any other country acting alone. The principal cause of oil pollution of the kind of which the Deputy complains is the cleaning out of the crude oil tanks of oil tankers and the disposal of oily ballast water from such tanks on the high seas. These persistent oils may be discharged many hundreds of miles out to sea and may be carried by wind and tide to pollute the beaches of this and other countries. The only entirely effective method of preventing oil pollution is the complete avoidance of the discharge of persistent oils into the sea.
The International Convention for the Prevention of the Pollution of the Sea by Oil, 1954, which is given effect in Ireland by the Oil Pollution of the Sea Act, 1956, prohibits the discharge of oil or oily mixtures within certain sea zones. It has not been possible to secure agreement on complete prohibition of the discharge of persistent oils and many countries with substantial tanker fleets are not signatories to the present Convention.
A further International Conference on Pollution of the Sea by Oil is to be held under the auspices of the Intergovernmental Maritime Consultative Organisation in April, 1962 and it is to be hoped that more effective measures for reducing oil pollution of the sea, supported by all the principal countries operating tanker fleets, will result from this conference. In the meantime, the provisions of the present Convention are enforced in Ireland and there is nothing further that we can do on our own.
Is the Minister satisfied that ships that are dumping the oil are conforming to the international agreement by dumping it sufficiently far off the coast?
It is quite obvious that ships are discharging their oil in a manner contrary to the Convention. It is very difficult to ascertain; there is no international policing. Those ships of countries which signed the Convention are in honour bound to record in their books whenever there are discharges of oil. Again, it depends on the honourable character of the ship's captain whether he conforms with the Convention. A number of tanker fleets going around the world have not agreed to subscribe to the Convention.
Is there no international court to which we can apply for redress to remedy this state of affairs? The Minister appreciates that the matter is becoming very serious along the east and south-east coasts.
The only real way out of the difficulty would seem to be to persuade all countries to sign the convention and to find some means by which no oil is discharged in a way that it eventually reaches the coasts.