Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for their presentation. I want to go back to accidents that took place before this legislation. We clearly have a problem with the marine accident investigation board that was in place at the time. Regarding this legislation, and we have a problem in that we are on a very tight timeline for pre-legislative scrutiny on it, which I do not particularly agree with. I think pre-legislative scrutiny should take as long as it takes.

Regarding the case of Caitríona Lucas, I have a letter from the Health and Safety Authority advising me that a file was prepared and sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions, DPP. No action was taken by the DPP, for whatever reason she had. I also have some information regarding the life jackets that were in use at the time and the testing of those life jackets, which is a bit difficult for me to understand. Caitríona Lucas's life jacket was never tested. Any testing that took place was done by the manufacturer. As far as I can ascertain, nobody from any of the stations that reported a fault with the life jacket was interviewed. There is video and photographic evidence to show the failure of those life jackets. I am just wondering and what I am trying to get into my head is that we had an investigation into the death of Caitríona Lucas. Clearly, to me it seems it was flawed. There are more questions than answers and more witnesses who have not been interviewed.

Does Mr. Kingston wish to make any comment on that?