Mr. Brian Hogan:

On the first point the Deputy raised about the European transport guidelines and the Marco Polo initiative, that was not specifically addressed during the Presidency. However, one issue that was addressed was the Blue Belt initiative, which addresses the concept of short sea shipping. The idea is to reduce regulatory burden on board ships when they call into ports in the Union, that is, the amount of paperwork is reduced to a single submission, which then is shared with all the relevant bodies. On the question of maritime safety, we work closely with all the European Union bodies. We do this in the International Maritime Organization, which comprises 190 member states, and a big part of our Presidency entailed co-ordinating Ireland's position on a global level through the International Maritime Organization, whereby we adopted a lot of international conventions throughout the world. Consequently, Ireland had a role in co-ordinating the 27 member states in that regard. In addition, when it comes to the Maritime Labour Convention, we also are involved. One of the objectives regarding the port state control directive and the Maritime Labour Convention was to co-ordinate with the Paris Memorandum of Understanding on port state control, which actually co-ordinates beyond the European Union. It includes the European Union maritime states, as well as Canada, Russia, Iceland and Norway, and we share information about inspection of ships. When the maritime labour directive on port state control was adopted, members will see in the text that it was done with the co-operation of the Paris memorandum of understanding. We have great co-operation in this regard and in this context, as I chair the Paris Memorandum of Understanding and so am familiar with the details, since the Maritime Labour Convention entered into force on 20 August, six ships have been detained throughout the 27 member states of the Paris Memorandum of Understanding, for non-compliance with the convention.