Vol. 577 No. 4
207 Mr. Durkan asked the Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources the extent to which his Department is prepared in the event of a disaster at sea with a possible threat of pollution; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [31641/03]
Overall responsibility for marine pollution prevention, preparedness, response and management is assigned to the Irish Coast Guard. This includes responsibility for supervising the planning and implementation by local and harbour authorities of arrangements for the protection of coastal amenity, fishery and wildlife areas, the removal of oil from the coastline and, in the event of a major pollution incident, the direction and co-ordination of the on-shore response. Offshore response to oil pollution incidents is mainly confined to monitoring, oil recovery or dispersing spraying.
The Coast Guard maintains national stockpiles of pollution response equipment at Killybegs, Castletownbere and Dublin. These stockpiles include offshore booms and skimmers. The Coast Guard also has a contract with a commercial company to provide additional equipment on-site within guaranteed timeframes in the event of a serious incident. This contract also provides for aerial dispersing spraying.
No country has sufficient State equipment to respond to every pollution emergency. Under the Bonn agreement concluded by north European countries and to which Ireland has been invited to accede, mutual support in marine pollution incidents is available, including access to a purpose built oil recovery vessel so successfully utilised in the recent Prestige incident. Ireland is also a member of the EU pollution management committee which can provide experts and also facilitate supports on request.
The Sea Pollution (Amendment) Act 1999 provides for harbour and port authorities, oil handling facilities and maritime local authorities to prepare pollution incident response plans to the Coast Guard for approval. These contingency plans are part of the overall national response framework. Plan templates have been provided to the parties concerned and plans are being finalised. The Coast Guard is also making arrangements for the provision of aerial surveillance facilities from 2004 onwards for the detection of oil spills and other harmful substances. It is also supporting research into the use of satellite technology to identify oil spills.
Marine pollution response in Ireland is continuously developing and co-operation between harbour-port and local authorities and the oil companies is strongly encouraged and facilitated by the Coast Guard.
