Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome Mr. McCarthy and Mr. Kingston. I am late to this process and there has already been a lot of pre-legislative scrutiny.

As far as I can see, it is like a sieve. It is like rounding up the sheep and I am a sheep farmer. It is like mountain sheep and you need dogs to round them all up. This new body will be inside the Department of Transport. Our guests will refer to it but they might give me some idea of what they really think about it. Should it not be outside the Department as is the case for the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission, GSOC, and other agencies?

We have spoken about the 22 commitments to the EU. Why are we not meeting those? An EU directive from 2009 was to be implemented by 2011. Where is that at?

My concerns go back as far as the Whiddy Island disaster. Deputy Carey has an interest in Clare. I have spoken previously about an incident off the coast of An Sean Phobal and An Rinn. This most recent incident, although it is not recent now, occurred off Helvick Head and affected the O'Brien and Esmonde families from my constituency. The investigation of that accident was an utter sham. It was a scam and a cover-up and you could call it nothing else. The Garda failed to act. I am still engaging with the Garda on the behalf of the families. I could not say enough about Anne-Marie O'Brien and the Trojan battle she has undertaken to seek justice. Perhaps our guests could offer some opinions about what kind of investigation should have taken place. How competent is the new board? Our guest might speak to the competence and qualifications of the new board members. I know that at the time of that incident, the board had no seagoing experience. They did their investigation from a desktop or from the land, or whatever. I was aghast at that. Perhaps our guests will address some of the shortcomings in those investigations. Numerous investigations and reports cost a lot of money but achieved nothing. We owe it to the people who lost their lives, their families and communities to have those incidents investigated properly and to provide some sense of justice and closure for the families.