Ms Cliona Cassidy:

I thank Deputy Harrington and welcome his questions. I have not yet considered one or two of the matters he raised. As he is aware, I have not yet started to work with the board. I have met some of the members of the board, however. I would like to respond to the concern expressed by the Deputy about the possibility of gilding the lily. I understand there is always a fear that if we go too far, we will end up telling people to stay on land, or to stay in a seat and make sure it has four legs. We do not want to tell people not to move. Having read some of the MCIB reports, it seems to me that the recommendations that are made are sensible. Mr. Brian Hogan, who is the board's head surveyor, has a great deal of experience in the marine industry. For that reason, I believe flights of fancy will be taken down. I suggest that the management of the board has a role in ensuring recommendations are sensible or can be legislated for. While I am not offering legal advice to the board, I hope my background in law will give me a realism in the world, even without my knowledge of the marine industry.

Therefore, we would not be over-recommending but we would be making recommendations that are sensible and which we believe could improve the situation in both the marine industry and with regard to leisure craft.

With regard to the Health and Safety Authority getting involved, the recommendations go to the Minister and they can result in a code of conduct or further regulation or statutory instruments. I believe it would be for the Minister to make the decision as to who would be the overriding authority in ensuring compliance in those situations. I have not had a view with regard to directly engaging with the Health and Safety Authority and I do not believe that, under the legislation, I or the board would, in fact, have that ability, although I will take that on board and I will investigate it.

In terms of general policy, my view from reading the legislation is that the board's role is to merely look at the incidents and for recommendations to flow from the incidents and from the causes of incidents. I do not believe there is a power within the board to make general policy recommendations outside of the reports on the incidents that have happened. That would be my current stance in regard to the personal beacons that were mentioned, although, obviously, if that arose in a situation and it was a recommendation that would have been of assistance, then there is no difficulty in the board making a recommendation flowing from that.