Pat Buckley (Cork East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is absolutely mind-boggling. I am delighted Mr. Gaffney is here and has put the matter on record. That is extremely important. He has all the evidence. I do not come from a maritime background at all. I might have been picking periwinkles a number of years ago or something and I did not like that job either. Mr. Gaffney has all the evidence and nobody has asked him for it.

As he said, even though we are talking about his ship, there are other vessels still at sea today that are facing disaster. Nobody is even raising a red flag or is concerned about that. More importantly, however, nobody is genuinely interested in addressing the safety concerns for starters, which should be a red flag. As I said earlier, some of these ships genuinely failed the NCT but were still left out. Somebody has to be responsible for that.

I have listened to other members. I made a note of what they said and I will talk to the Chair about it. This is an international issue. I am speaking as Acting Chair. I have no problem bringing this case to the Tánaiste and the Taoiseach and pleading on Mr. Gaffney’s behalf. I do not agree that if we say we will help him, it till open the floodgates. I do not believe in that. How could it?