Joe O'Toole (Independent)

I also want the Minister of State to provide an expansion of the points raised by Senator O'Rourke because they are crucial to an understanding of the issue.

I wish to raise another issue which I have raised with the Minister of State on a number of occasions previously. This new Part 4 of the Bill makes provision for passenger boats, fishing vessels and pleasure craft and the three sections mirror each other. In each, the phrase used is "may provide for the registration" of these craft. As far as I am aware, this is the first time in legislation that the registration of pleasure craft has been provided for. Perhaps this is not the case. I know it could be done earlier. Can the Minister of State indicate how it might work? There are many reasons this seems to be the case.

It is very difficult to recognise an individual boat. It reminds me of a racehorse or a Friesian cow, where farmers must draw them and keep their colours and markings to recognise them. Irish pleasure boats, some of which can be quite expensive, are generally not registered. The reason for this is a difficulty with the Department, which is not anyone's fault but is simply the way things are. Currently, getting a pleasure craft registered requires a person to go through 90% of the same procedure as if one were getting the Queen Mary registered. This is not an exaggeration and one must go through all the same steps. I have informed the Minister of State previously that we should have a simple method whereby someone can register a boat very much like one would register a car. In the UK, there are two kinds of registration, one for small boats and the other is like Lloyds list.

This issue will be important in the future. At some stage the Minister of State will regulate that a boat must pass a safety test, a sort of NCT for boats, to ensure it is a safe craft. There must be some element of registration involved and the Minister will never require people to go through the current process. We need an easier process to do it as it is currently very hard to prove. The Revenue Commissioners perform a test and check people who buy boats because they believe a lot of hot money has gone into boats. I have a boat which I can assure the Minister of State was not bought with hot money.