Michael Collins (Cork South-West, Independent Ireland Party) | Oireachtas source

First, I congratulate the Minister of State on his new brief. It is the first time I have had the opportunity to do so in the Dáil. I wish him the best. When he held a ministerial role previously, we worked together very closely and I hope we can again work closely together on issues going forward.

I have serious concerns with this Bill going forward. Lessons have not been learned. We need to go back before we go ahead. We need to talk about and look at areas where lessons have not been learned.

The Whiddy Island disaster is the most important lesson anyone in this country could have learned, with 50 people dying off the coast of Bantry on 8 January 1979. I have brought it up on numerous occasions. I welcome Michael Kingston to the Visitors Gallery. He has spearheaded the campaign on this and other marine tragedies through the years, and no better person to do so. I pleaded with the Government to at least have the decency and respect to give an apology to the families affected by the Whiddy Island disaster. I have spoken not only to Michael but also to other family members. A lady in Drimoleague - I will not mention names, though I do not think she would mind if I did - asked me recently why nothing was ever done and they never got justice for their families. This is something that hurts people. The Bill as it stands could leave us in a similar situation to that we have visited before.

I am surrounded by water and quite often bring up fishery issues in the Dáil because not many TDs want to speak about it, but there are fishing tragedies out there. There are fishermen who have lost their lives and a lot of mystery surrounds their losses. In speaking about the Bill, we need to concentrate on the past before we go forward. I ask the Minister of State to give some time and consideration to this. He might meet with the Bantry Whiddy Island group led by Michael to discuss the issues that need to be put to bed and resolved. The State needs to recognise that but it has not done so. It has refused to recognise this for the past 40 or 50 years. It is not good enough. It has hurt the relatives of innocent people who lost their lives, including a relation of mine who lost his life that night on Whiddy Island, as did Michael's father and many more.

I ask the Minister of State to look again at the Bill going forward and, while doing so, to work with us to at least bring about an apology from the State to the families of those who died in the Whiddy Island disaster, the 47 French and seven Irish individuals who lost their lives on that terrible night in Bantry. It is something the families have sought and pleaded for. They put their case as strongly as they could but they have been neglected and forgotten by the State. The Minister of State might be the person to make that change. We have a new Government. I pleaded with the former and present taoisigh to make that apology but it has not been made. I again ask the Minister of State to sit down with us going forward to, at least, bring about that apology. It will not bring much solace to the people who lost their loved ones but it would certainly be a move in the right direction. They deserve that and their families deserve that, regardless of whether they are French or Irish. I ask the Minister to consider this going forward.

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