Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We agreed to accelerate matters based on what the Department had advised but we also, on several occasions, insisted that the Clinch report would be made fully available to each member of the committee. One cannot blindly pursue particular legislation and ignore a document that has very important information within it to which, as of yet, I am not privy.

We demanded that the Department would make public the Clinch report, which was drafted by Captain Steve Clinch of the UK based Clinchmaritime Limited. It is important to note that this report was a Government-funded independent review of Ireland's maritime casualty investigation structures and its aim were to address the current organisational structures of the Marine Casualty Investigation Board, to set out recommendations and suggestions that we could embody in law to ensure we are fully compliant with our EU obligations and that we would have a robust and properly resourced marine casualty capacity in Ireland. The committee would like to know why this important report is not in the public domain. It is essential that we would be privy to it and that it would inform decision-making in this committee and in the wider Houses of the Oireachtas. I understand that one of the key recommendations in the report, which, as I said, I have not had sight of, is the establishment of a full-time professional unit to investigate marine casualties. The current structure in Ireland is a part-time investigation board staffed by part-time investigators. In order to properly provide for marine investigations in Ireland, surely we need to know the full content of the Clinch report and its recommendations.

Marine casualty investigation is the very poor relation of air and rail accident investigation in this country. Taking 2019 as a base year, the air accident investigation unit, which is a full-time unit, had an operational budget of €750,000 and the rail investigation unit, also a full-time unit, had an operational budget of €350,000. That same year, in which six lives were lost in Irish territorial waters, the part-time Marine Casualty Investigation Board had a paltry budget of just €27,000. I live in a coastal county where, thankfully, we have not had a major aircraft incident in recent years, although we have had some slight incidents involving aircraft crashing. We also have not, thankfully, had a rail accident of great significance. Every year there are lives lost at sea, however. We need to have a robust investigations board to investigate in that regard. That does not exist currently. The report that would identify the shortcomings has not been circulated.

Following my contribution, I have to leave this meeting in order to attend another. Before doing so, I would like to reference the Marine Hazards Limited report, which dealt with the 2016 accident off the coast of Kilkee, County Clare, in which Caitríona Lucas, a Coast Guard volunteer, lost her life. She was a fantastic woman. She gave her life trying to rescue and look after others. There are deficiencies in terms of investigation that need to be of guidance to us as we try to prepare robust legislation. I would like to pay tribute as, I am sure, would many here today, to Michael Kingston. We get briefs from Departments and from everywhere and anywhere. Michael Kingston has been hugely invested in this legislation and in guiding and informing us. I want to pay tribute to him on the record.

It is essential the Clinch report is circulated. This is not tiddlywinks. These are lives. In the context of legislation relating to safety, we need the guiding report, that is, the Clinch report, available to each and every one of us.