Mr. Ciaran McCarthy:

Mr. Kingston referred to the need for codification. If one looks at the draft heads of the Bill, one sees references to the Merchant Shipping Acts 1894 to 2020. That in itself is absolutely unacceptable. The fact that we have legislation on our Statute Book from a different country, dating from before this State was formed when the merchant shipping fleet would have been largely sailing ships, not even steam ships, not to mention the diesel or nuclear ships that we have today, is very stark.

The effect of the lack of codification over such a lengthy period is that the area is deeply complex and opaque. It is very difficult, even for lawyers like me, to untangle the web and find out what is required of regulators and what actors within the industry can achieve when we are advising them. The area is crying out for codification. In particular, Mr. Kingston referred to the SOLAS convention, which is basically shipping 101. It is the single most important merchant shipping safety legislation and it dates back to the time of the Titanic. We are on the fourth iteration of the convention now but our implementation of SOLAS, which is a particular interest of mine, is absolutely appalling. We have implemented this convention through a series of Acts and secondary legislation which amend and correct each other. It is absolutely opaque and really difficult for anybody to actually understand what is required under the convention.

In this post-Brexit era, we are so dependent on shipping. The fact that we are an island means that everything has to be shipped here. Almost everything got here on a ship, including the clothes I am wearing, the car that I drove in today or if I had cycled in, the steel used to manufacture my bicycle. Everything had to be shipped to this country and this is especially important post Brexit-----