Mr. Terry Allen:

It is 11 miles offshore, or thereabouts, so it is not something one could see or watch from land. A measure such as that would take the Naval Service to be on site and that is not practical. In theory, a fishing boat dragging a net across the wreck is probably in breach of the underwater heritage order because it is disturbing the wreck, which is a protected structure. In theory, the Minister's consent is needed in that regard but in practical terms it is difficult to know what we could do.

There is probably nothing practical that can be done to protect it. There is a German submarine in Cork Harbour and the same issue arises with that. There have been difficulties in protecting it from people diving down and interfering with it. If the problem is not nets, it can be something else. We will come back to the committee on that but, to be clear, there is no precedent. It is a one-off because of the particular circumstances. I have responded to the director of the museum and asked him to confirm that for me. I did not hear back from the director of the museum so I am assuming he is now happy that the undertaking has been given and that it has not happened.

It is probably the case also that the licence we are talking about now was the last such licence given for the Lusitania. There is not a subsequent one where the committee could see that we have reverted to the norm in a different circumstance.