Martin Browne (Tipperary, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I totally agree with the Senator. What haunts me more is that all the officials in this country and in Europe know another three similar boats were out there for which no one is taking responsibility. People's lives are at risk. We spoke the other day in private session about how we, as a committee, are duty-bound to raise these issues that concern people lives. It is about health and safety as well as the compensation for a family who have gone through horrific times. They sat in front of us and we listened to their story of what they went through and continue to go through. It is frightening. Like I said, there are maybe 25 or 30 people on any one of those boats out fishing. If we multiply that by three, the casualty numbers could be horrific if something is not done. The frightening thing is that no one seems to want to take responsibility for those other three boats. This family spent a small fortune to get their boat up to standard, which they should not have had to do because, as Senator Craughwell said, it went through all the systems in Europe, Holland and here getting licensed and then suddenly, somebody decided to pull the plug.