Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome Senator Fitzpatrick to her role as Acting Leader today. I take the opportunity to acknowledge Saoirse Ruane, the 12-year-old who appeared on "The Late Late Show". In her short life, she raised millions of euro for children. We should remember her today.

I spent the past few days in Brussels and Bruges to discuss defence and security. I have spoken many times about my great concern regarding our defenceless Atlantic coastline. The Cathaoirleach, as a Cork man, will know we have only one ship patrolling the part of the ocean under our remit, which is ten times our land mass. I have called for an Atlantic fleet to be established that would involve all member states of the European Union working in harmony with one another.

To my shock and surprise, while I was in Europe, I learned about the common information-sharing environment, CISE, initiative and that Ireland is not a member. It involves 20 countries of the EU and is concerned with the safety and security of maritime transport, fisheries control, marine pollution preparedness and response, protection of the marine environment, customs and border control, general law enforcement and defence. Why is Ireland not a member? The answer is we do not have anybody to drive it. We do not have what we should have, which is the appointment of a senior naval officer as co-ordinator to pull together the Coast Guard, the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, the Defence Forces, including the Air Corps, Naval Service and Army, and the people in charge of fisheries control. Everybody who has anything to do with maritime matters should be involved in this. We should be a member of CISE. Why we are not is beyond me. I will write to the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste and Minister for Defence about it and I call for a debate on it in the House. We have failed to capitalise on the organisations that are established in Europe and are under the umbrella of the EU. If we were a party to this programme, an amount of information would flow our way with respect to drug interdiction, defence, etc. We would have access to all that information. We really need to get on top of this issue.

I note the motion on the Order Paper today concerning the Seanad election to replace our good colleague Niall Ó Donnghaile. If there is nobody here to move that motion, I would be happy to move it at this stage.