Victor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I want to thank my colleague, Senator Buttimer, for seconding this amendment. It is very helpful and it allows us to get our debate under way quickly. I want to acknowledge and thank him for that. I want to also welcome the Minister. I do not want to rehash too much here today. To be fair, we have had a good debate. I want to acknowledge the Minister’s staff who are here as well. This is a very specialised area. I have looked at the reports on the marine casualties Bill as well as issues around marine casualties and the importance of being an island nation and our interface with the sea. There has been an awful lot of public commentary about this. I also want to acknowledge the Joint Committee on Transport and Communications which dealt very extensively with this particular issue.The amendment provides that within nine months of the passing of this Bill, the Minister will bring a report on "the feasibility to provide for the establishment of a regulator for the Marine Casualty Investigation Board. The regulator will, if deemed agreeable by the Minister..." and so on. Ultimately, this is a decision for the Minister. He is responsible and is driving this issue. I also want to acknowledge the work of the Minister of State, Deputy Naughton, in this area. I thank her for her meaningful engagement during the Committee Stage debate.

We have had the Lacey report and the Clinch report, with which the Minister will be very familiar. The former was prepared by Ms Róisín Lacey, senior counsel, and delivered to the Department on 25 August 2010 but remains unpublished. The report was commissioned by the then Minister for Transport, Deputy Noel Dempsey, a long time ago. The Lacey report made some very substantial recommendations, one of which was that there would be an investigation office, independent of the Department in every way. It would encompass aviation, rail and the marine. The report identified the fact that this must be done in order to comply with EU directives and was compatible with both international and Irish law. We have moved on from all of that. The Department explored the case for having a response for aviation, rail and marine but I detect, having read the debates, that there was a desire within the Department to focus on the marine aspect.

What is interesting, having looked back at the press clippings on this as well as at research provided by the Oireachtas Library and Research Service, is that there were many calls for the Garda Commissioner to act on the Lacey report. While that is very interesting, I do not intend to get into who said what because it is not appropriate to do so today. Accusations were made that there was huge resistance within the Department of Transport to publishing the Lacey report and its recommendations. Again, that accusation is out there; I am not making it but there is a suggestion that there was huge departmental resistance, for some reason. While I am privy to aspects of the reports, I cannot be absolutely sure they are correct so I will not quote extensively.

I will now turn to the Clinch report, with which the Minister would be very familiar. I read a number of transcripts into the record at the last meeting, on which the Minister commented, relating to the Clinch report. That report was prepared by Captain Steve Clinch of UK-based Clinchmaritime Limited and was also commissioned by the Department of Transport. Captain Clinch was asked to carry out an independent review of the organisational structures of the Maritime Casualty Investigation Board, MCIB. The report was delivered to the Department in 2021 and has still not been published. I do not know if the Minister has considered all of its recommendations or if he intends to implement any of them. I simply do not know.

It is important to state that the Clinch report was a Government-funded report and its author was tasked with carrying out an independent review of the MCIB structures. That is the kernel of the debate on these issues. We need to determine how to address the current deficits and problems in the organisational structures of the MCIB. That is where the suggested shortcomings lie and where the concerns arise. Clinch set out numerous recommendations and suggested that these could be embodied into law, thus ensuring that Ireland is fully compliant with its EU and international obligations. The Minister is aware of the Clinch report and of the finer, granular detail of the recommendations therein. Clinch also advocates for a robust and properly resourced MCIB in the context of any new organisational structure. Again, we are talking about the organisational structure, professionalism and accountability vis-à-visissues relating to marine casualty investigations.

What does the Minister intend to put in place and when does he intend to publish the Clinch report in full? How many recommendations are contained in the report? Has the Minister considered them in detail? Is he still working on that? Is it his intention to implement all of the recommendations and what is the timeline for that? I understand that one of the key recommendations of the Clinch report is the establishment of a full-time, professional uniformed MCIB. That sounds reasonable and obvious. I am told that the current structure in Ireland is a part-time investigation board. I cannot be sure of that but that is what I have been told. It is my understanding that we have a part-time investigation board that is staffed by part-time investigators. Is that the case? I ask the Minister to confirm whether the current MCIB is a part-time or a full-time operation. Are the investigators part time? Perhaps there is not the demand for full-time investigators. The Minister will know this from the data in the possession of his Department. Is there a real demand for a full-time panel of investigators? I am simply posing those questions.

At a meeting of the Oireachtas Select Committee on Transport and Communications on Wednesday, 16 February 2022, the Minister said:

As the Clinch report was commissioned on the back of the Department's initiative, it is very much in our interest that it would be published and acted on. I am happy to commit here to doing exactly that.

During previous debates on the record of the Houses, Deputies Joe Carey, Darren O'Rourke and Cathal Crowe expressed similar concerns to the ones I am articulating here today. They also said that there was clearly a need for new structures and new systems to deal with maritime casualty investigations and related matters, including a full-time, independent investigation unit. Again, to go back to the meeting of 16 February last, the Minister said the following: "What I said in private session is that we expect the publication of the Clinch report at the end of quarter 1 and that is still the timeline, subject to the Office of the Attorney General and others signing off on it".

I understand the role of the Office of the Attorney General and respect it. I also know that the Minister clearly intends to publish the report, or at least I hope so. I do not know where we are in relation to the Attorney General's office considering these matters. I do know that the office has a big work schedule and this might not be at the top of the priority list. Can the Minister give us an indication of where we are with regard to the Attorney General considering these matters. Are we any nearer a deadline or a date for the publication of the Clinch report?

I have no skin in this game. I have never been involved in a maritime accident, nor have any members of my family. I have no knowledge of same except through people who have contacted my office. People from Donegal, Galway, Kinsale and Arklow have contacted me and shared horrific stories of their experiences. They are concerned and believe there are shortcomings here that must be addressed. What I have read and my understanding of the Minister's commentary on these matters, particularly at meetings of the select committee, leads me to believe that he also has concerns although I do not know the extent of those concerns. A lot of work may be going on in the background.

I ask the Minister to ensure that there is an assessment of the current organisational structures of the MCIB and to set out a report, at some stage in the future, with recommendations and timelines to achieve the most appropriate and most effective marine casualty investigation structures for Ireland. That is not an unreasonable request. Such recommendations must take into account national and European legislation in this regard.

My amendment provides that the Minister shall, within nine months, consider the issue of a regulator. It is important that any new regulator would take into consideration the recommendations of the Lacey report. The amendment provides that the regulator "will take into consideration", which is very reasonable, the recommendations of the Lacey and Clinch reports, as well as the "ruling of the European Court of Human Rights". This is a reference to a particular case which was very significant. I do not want to go into that in much detail but we know that it came at a cost, financially, to the individual who took the case to Europe.

The Minister is on top of his brief. He knows the issues here and the granular detail of the concerns. As I said, I have no skin in this game or personal axe to grind with anyone. All I want to see is a robust and professional operation that ensures we have an MCIB that is well resourced and appropriately structured to address the issues in Ireland.