Joe Carey (Clare, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We will keep an eye on it.

I thank the Minister and the officials for coming before us. In fairness, the committee has pushed this proposed legislation on foot of the Merchant Shipping (Investigation of Marine Casualties) (Amendment) Act 2022. When we were dealing with the latter, we argued that there was no need for it and that more a substantive instrument, such as that which we have before us today in the form of the general scheme, was what was needed. The committee argued this because a number of reports were commissioned by the Department with responsibility for transport but never published. I would also welcome the publication of the report by Róisín Lacey, as the Minister has committed to do today. I also request that the Clinch report be published. I know the Minister cites legal restrictions for not doing this. I understand, from a briefing that I attended a number of weeks ago, that it was the previous Attorney General who gave that particular advice. I asked whether approaches would be made to the new Attorney General for a view on this. It is in the public interest that the Clinch report be published in full. It is a substantive piece of work. The recommendations and observations are top-class. In fairness, the Department has followed through with the heads of this Bill, which is a welcome development. I appeal to the Minister to look again and try to get the Clinch report published in the best interests of the public.

I note the opening comments of the Minister on the Lacey report and why it came about. My understanding is that it came about because of an impending EU directive, of which Ireland was later found to be in breach. We had to introduce the Merchant Shipping (Investigation of Marine Casualties) (Amendment) Act 2022, which the Minister brought through successfully. We were in breach of it and we only came out of that in January. We cannot ignore this, which is why the Lacey report came forward. It examines the multimodal model, and I do not think there is anything wrong with that. It is a good start for having a fully independent and fully resourced chief investigator. How long will it take to put this together once the legislation is passed? What type of budget does the Minister envisage will be allocated to the new office?

What are the Minister and the officials planning to do with regard to the many reports that were put together but that were not implemented correctly? We are correcting the position now by means of this proposed legislation. People were on boards who should not have been on them. We were found to be offside by the European Court of Justice on this. What is the Minister going to do? What will he say to the families involved? For them, the files have not been closed. Is the Minister planning to contact the families involved where investigations happened but where they were probably not carried out correctly as a result of the regime we had in place?