Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I understand the Minister of State is not accepting the amendment but I suggest we are just trying to ensure an understanding and expertise. We have suggested a few different ways of achieving these. During our consideration of the previous Stage, I suggested there be internal expertise within the independent unit or among the investigators it will be employing. I am not talking about the expertise of each investigator but about the whole spectrum of the MAIU's employees. I am suggesting it would have somebody or maybe some persons with expertise in search and rescue. As an alternative, we have suggested engagement with the bodies with expertise. We are being stymied in both directions in that when we suggest that capacity be developed internally, we are told "No", and when we suggest engagement with external experts, we are also told "No". The Minister of State talks about the report but we do not want to wait until the next accident or investigation of what went wrong to have a report available with people's feedback outlining what could have been done differently or better. It is exactly a matter of ensuring there is capacity or that, if the expertise is not internal, it is identified and engaged with beforehand to ensure best practice. All of this is simply trying to ensure that, in the work of the independent unit, it will engage in best practice regarding search and rescue, learn from accidents that have happened and realise the search and rescue component is a fundamental aspect after any marine accident. Many marine accidents may occur but search and rescue operations to save lives are fundamental. I would like to be assured about this, even through the Minister of State saying he will try to address it in regulations he is going to put in place. It seems to be a case of setting the unit up with some very generic provisions on service vessels, but not the very non-generic provision I will come to later whereby entire categories of vessels can just be excluded. There will not be nuance in recognising very dangerous and specific situations, such as those colleagues in Sinn Féin suggested on Committee Stage could involve the coroner's court. There are areas where co-operation will be crucial and this is one of them. I regret the Minister of State is not accepting my amendment.