Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I share the Deputies' concerns about the shocking loss of life at sea in recent years. They mentioned the Tit Bonhomme, the Pere Charles and the recent tragic events off the coast of Waterford. The current position is not acceptable. I have reviewed all the reports of the Marine Casualty Investigation Board and they make for harrowing reading. Deputy Dessie Ellis mentioned Iceland which has a larger fishing fleet than Ireland but has lost very few people, if any, in recent years.

I agree that the use of personal locator beacons would be useful, but the reality is that people usually die within minutes of entering the sea. As such, the usefulness of the beacons will be only in so far as they help us to locate people's remains. Our objective must be to prevent accidents in the first place, which has been the approach taken to road safety. The difficulty is that many in our maritime communities and others who use the sea do not have a culture of safety first and, moreover, compliance with the rules is not adequately enforced. In addition, there is a problem with a lack of respect for workers' rights. We have seen instances of workers, both from overseas and the State, not being trained, mustered or rested properly, batteries not being charged and other things that should not be happening. The bottom line is that we can pass any law we like, but if it is not enforced and we do not have a culture of zero tolerance in regard to non-compliance, we will continue to lose dozens of people at sea in the coming years.

See this speech in context