Noel Dempsey (Meath West, Fianna Fail)

We had this discussion before on Committee Stage. While I have no problem accepting the principle of what Deputy Broughan has said on the matter, this is not the Bill for this particular type of amendment. As a fellow Trim man, I know of the work of Tony Ayton in this area. Nothing will give me greater pleasure but to be as progressive as we possibly can on these matters when we debate ratifying the Maritime Labour Convention. I accept Deputy Broughan is committed to the amendments' intentions. However, they are very separate matters to those covered by this legislation.

Amendment No. 4, concerning the flag under which the vessel is registered, may actually defeat its intended purpose if accepted since we have no regard for any flag or otherwise. This Bill will apply the rigours of the inspection system to every ship regardless of whether it is registered. Inserting this amendment will not strengthen this legislation.

The concept of the flag of convenience is not actually formally recognised anywhere. The officially recognised system in both the EU and international organisations for identifying high-risk systems is the black, grey and white list of flag states, published by the Paris Memorandum of Understanding on Port State Control and available on its website. The list is used so that urgent safety inspections can be carried out on ships visiting Irish and European ports. Details of the inspections and detentions carried out under the port state control regime are also published on the Department's website.

The Maritime Labour Convention will consolidate and update 68 existing International Labour Organization, ILO, conventions and recommendations adopted since 1920. Countries that do not ratify the new convention will remain bound by the previous ILO conventions that they have ratified. There is a major incentive for a ship to register under a flag of good repute so as to avoid the potential of having a large number of inspections and detentions.

We will deal with the matters the Deputy has raised directly when ratifying the Maritime Labour Convention, hopefully before the end of the year.

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