Brendan Kenneally (Fianna Fail)

I welcome this Bill and commend the Minister for bringing it forward. The Bill extends protections for Ireland as a maritime nation and imposes strict requirements on maritime carriers, who were not subject to such rigorous attention in the past. This Bill is legal and technical in nature and, while it is designed to give wide ranging protection to our people and to the environment, it has little other impact on the public at large.

The Bill is designed to give effect to the International Convention on Liability and Compensation for Damage in connection with the carriage of Hazardous and Noxious Substances by Sea 1996 — the HNS Convention — and to give effect to the 1996 Protocol to the International Convention on Limitation of Liability for Maritime Claims, 1976 — LLMC 1976. The HNS Convention applies to loss of life or personal injury, loss of or damage to property, environmental damage and the cost of preventive measures arising from incidents involving a range of substances that would be hazardous or noxious to people or the environment.

The HNS Convention was adopted in May 1996 but has not yet entered into force. It will not enter into force until 18 months after, inter alia, 12 states express their consent, including four with a registered fleet of at least 2 million units of gross tonnage. Whatever about Ireland being counted among the 12, it certainly will not pass the threshold of 2 million tonnes of shipping and it will be left to those countries with large fleets to bring this measure into force. Materials covered in this Bill are explosive in nature such as liquified gases, corrosive acids, volatile chemicals, aromatic liquids and certain solid materials which generate dangerous gases when carried in bulk.

I note that radioactive materials are excluded from this Bill and it is not difficult to understand why. Obviously such materials would have a far more devastating and longer lasting effect than the vast majority of other materials being carried and such liability would not be relevant to this Bill. While on the subject of radioactive materials, can the Minister of State say what progress, if any, has been made in regard to the transport of radioactive materials between Far Eastern countries and the reprocessing plant in Britain?

Members will recall that there was grave disquiet and strong objections on the various occasions when such waste was carried in the not too distant past. I realise that these shipments are not allowed to travel through our waters but radioactive materials, or any leakage therefrom, or, God forbid, a nuclear accident or terrorist attack, would not take account of political borders and could devastate us as well as other countries in their path should there be a serious incident. I do not wish to labour this point but it is a consistent problem and a running sore for this part of Europe and now might be a good time to raise the matter again.

Often progress on such problems is best made outside the glare of the spotlight and not at a time when such materials are on the high seas. Has the Minister made any headway in convincing the transporting or recipient countries that such a practice is inimical to our interests and the interests of humankind generally? We can do without the specific avoidable risk such shipments generate. I urge the Minister to use every avenue open to him to have this practice stopped and to galvanise the Government once more to put every pressure on the new British Government to wind down the activities of the Sellafield plant.

This Bill contains many of the principles contained in previous maritime Acts. We should seek to include all those safeguards in this measure as well. Compensation payment arrangements are along the same lines as those currently applicable for oil pollution damage. It is proposed that an international compensation fund would be set up, which would be financed by the companies trading in substantial amounts of the materials covered by the convention. The fund would pay any compensation necessary over and above that for which the ship owner is liable.

This is sensible as the amounts involved in loss of life, loss of earnings, illness, clean up and a myriad of other costs might well go beyond the capacity of any single company to underwrite. We have seen the massive clean up bills generated by various oil tanker disasters, even though oil is a substance that is reasonably stable and reasonably safe to handle given the most basic safeguards. The substances which this Bill purports to deal with may be poisonous, explosive or corrosive.

In these enlightened days, when a high degree of protection is, thankfully, demanded for workers, the costs of clean up escalate, as the level of risk rises. The Bill will ensure this country is fully aligned with international standards of protection against damage in connection with the carriage of such substances. This measure will also require Irish vessels to carry compulsory insurance for an amount they would be liable to pay in compensation for loss and damage caused by dangerous substances. It is not expected that many Irish companies would come within the ambit of the Bill, but it is vitally important to have it on our Statute Book and for us to be part of the convention which regulates the compensation factor for incidents involving dangerous and noxious substances. There is little point in locking the stable door when the horse has bolted. Now is the time to make adequate provision for the future.

The Bill also provides for enforcement by the Garda, the Defence Forces and harbour masters. It is interesting that harbour masters should be included in this measure. The Bill appears to provide a definition of that office. Perhaps the Minister of State will indicate if this is the case. If they are to be specifically involved, why was there no reference to them in the Maritime Safety Bill, of which Committee and Report Stages were debated in the House in recent weeks?

I have spoken previously about the devastation of the French coast by the sinking of several oil tankers which spewed out thousands of tonnes of highly carcinogenic oil, thereby wrecking the livelihood of the local population, depriving them of an idyllic lifestyle in some of the most beautiful coastal regions of France and subjecting them to unnecessary and avoidable threats to their health and well-being.

The Bill does not specifically cover oil spillages but crude oil could certainly be termed a noxious substance and oil tanker wreckages are the most common form of environmental disaster from such substances. There are many well known, well documented and disastrous wrecks from which to choose. In 1978 the Amoco Cadiz spilled 233,000 tonnes of oil into the ocean. The Prestige was lost in November 2002 off the coast of Spain and the Erika was lost off the Brittany coast in 1999. In the case of the Prestige, a report prepared by Penn State University suggested that 14,000 metric tonnes of oil were recovered from the tanker using the shuttle-bag system, and that between 16,000 and 23,000 tonnes of oil are still in the ship.

If disasters can happen with oil, they can equally happen with other noxious and dangerous substances. Much of the trouble with oil was due to the fact that the majority of tankers were single-hulled. We have no guarantee of what kind of ships will be used to transport this and other dangerous materials.

The Prestige is of particular interest according to the report because it sank in approximately 12,000 feet of water, deeper than most tanker wrecks, making full recovery of the oil impossible. Even though the tanker has, for the most part, stopped leaking oil, it will eventually leak again. The remaining 30% of the oil comprises materials which are not easily degradable. Normally, salt water would rust through the hull in about 23 years, but in this case, a bacteria that devours iron is present and it will take only four years before the wreck starts to leak again which suggests that we could be in trouble as early as next year.

In some respects, an oil spill is easier to deal with than other hazardous substances. Due to its weight there is a chance leaked oil will fall to the bottom of the ocean where it would solidify in the extreme cold. Many other chemicals and hazardous substances which are not as heavy or as cloying as oil would dissipate in sea water with disastrous results. They may not even be readily visible or otherwise detectable. The ocean is a big and lonely place when one is searching for relatively small objects or spills.

All of these cases and many others to which I have not referred serve to demonstrate that tanker safety and pollution prevention must be further improved. The International Maritime Organisation is primarily concerned with the safety of shipping and the prevention of marine pollution. The organisation has also introduced regulations covering liability and compensation for damage such as pollution caused by ships. In March 2001, the International Maritime Organisation finalised a new convention to apply the principles of the shipping liabilities convention to all types of commercial shipping such as bulk carriers and container ships. In the debate on the Oil Pollution of the Sea (Civil Liability and Compensation) (Amendment) Act 2003, I stated that in its communication following the Prestige accident, the European Commission had repeated that the total level of compensation available should be augmented to €1 billion. Furthermore, in the Prestige communication, the Commission reiterated the need to introduce keener sanctions against any person, including legal persons, responsible for an incident of pollution through grossly negligent behaviour.

The Commission also stated its intention to amend the international oil pollution compensation regime so that the right of a ship owner to limit the financial liability would be abolished. Nothing which I have heard or read since leads me to believe that this necessary change has been implemented. The right to compensation is an important point. An example of this is the loss of income suffered by tourist resorts due to oil pollution, thereby resulting in an economic loss to traders and hoteliers.

One of the most recent disasters of this nature in European waters was caused by the sinking of the oil tanker Erika on Sunday, 12 December 1999. It was carrying 26,000 tonnes of fuel oil when it broke in two 60 miles off the beautiful Breton coast of France. At the time a coastguard official stated that there was a danger of pollution but he could not say how serious would be the impending environmental disaster that eventually struck 250 miles of French coastline. The seriousness of the matter soon became apparent. That environmental and economic disaster had wide-ranging consequences, not just for the environment, bird and marine life, but also for the people of that part of Brittany and the coast south of there who relied on the sea or tourism for their living. The spill caused havoc along the mid-western coast of France in the vicinity of one of its busiest seaside resorts, La Baule, which catered for hundreds of thousands of French and international tourists each year. In addition to the trade of this major resort being seriously disrupted and the significant threat to its lucrative tourism trade, the various types of fishing industry on the coast was also devastated.

I do not wish to focus exclusively on the damage caused by oil spillages but this is a substance with which we are all familiar. We are aware of its dangers and, relatively speaking, the ease with which we can deal with it. Not all substances are as visible or easily identifiable. Losses to the maritime industry have been a grim reality for the many Bretons who relied on the fruits of the sea to earn a living. The stretch of coast devastated by the Erika disaster was home to many oyster beds that were contaminated with oil and, as a result, many oyster farmers went out of business. So too did the freelance fishermen, who relied on collecting cockles, mussels and clams at low tide, which was a precarious living at the best of times. The sea salt industry, which was situated on the marshy land just inside the coast was also threatened by the polluted water. However, the greatest impact has been on sea birds. Over 20 times more were killed following the sinking of the Erika than when the Amoco Cadiz sank in 1978 spilling 233,000 tonnes of oil. This was due to the fact that many more birds were wintering in the region at the time of the break-up of the Erika.

Concern over oil pollution resulted in reduced bookings to the coastal resorts, which relied heavily on the seasonal tourist trade. The French Government mounted a major clean-up operation along the coast, but despite the investment of significant resources, a fear of the carcinogenic effects of the deadly oil remained for some time. One constituent of mine who is familiar with the area told me of the terrible effect the disaster has had on the region. A favourite pastime of the local population at low tide was to walk out along the shore to collect wild oysters from the rich beds there. They brought full buckets of oysters back to their village which was a natural bonus for those lucky enough to live in the area. The Erika disaster put paid to all of that.

We know from bitter experience the physical damage and economic hardship that can be caused by pollutants in the sea. We must close every loophole and provide a specific compensation requirement for other potential hazards. The legislation is timely and beneficial. I thank the Minister of State and commend the Bill to the Seanad.