Mr. Michael Kingston:

We have to be careful when we are talking about this issue in the context of our historical arrival at where we are. We have had serious failings. I would go so far as to say that there is no other conclusion. We deliberately did not have an independent Marine Casualty Investigation Board. One only needs to read the Róisín Lacey report.

It is not inconceivable that independence can be achieved while reporting to the Department of Transport with strict protocols. That is the case in the United Kingdom and it also exists in other jurisdictions. However, we need to be careful about how it is done. For that reason, I have explained how important it is there is a strict protocol. In fairness, that is referenced in the legislation. It is not that we are in a quagmire; the legislation is positive.

We talked about two different issues today. Mr. McCarthy and I made some sensible suggestions to enhance the legislation. We can put together a note to the committee afterwards. We also talked about historical problems. We have been careful to compliment the drafters of the current legislation. They have worked extremely hard as public servants. However, there is an historical problem that the Department needs to acknowledge and it owes obligations to the people who have had very serious and tragic problems under that regime.

Regarding the proposed legislation, with the proper protocols in place, it is workable within the Department of Transport but physically located elsewhere. As Captain Clinch suggests, it could be located with the air accident investigation and rail units so that they can garner corporate knowledge, work together and move towards a multimodal system, which would be the next round of legislation. We would prefer if that happened now, but we are where we are. Given the historical failure to acknowledge wrongdoing and put our hands up to fix this, which has been going on for decades, those protocols have to be carefully thought through. Probably the most important thing that this committee could do is ensure that the proper protocol is in place to ensure that independence is not only done but seen to be done, in addition to the other suggestions that we made today enhance the legislation to help the earnest drafters who have brought forward the proposed legislation.