merrion street

Transport Minister Leo Varadkar, together with Agriculture Minister Simon Coveney today launched a multi-faceted, cross Departmental, Cross Agency safety initiative for the Irish Fishing Industry.

The initiative is supported by both Departments and their respective agencies and features the following:

• Provision of Vessel & personal locator beacons.
• A new enhanced Safety Equipment Grant Aid Scheme operated by BIM for the purchase of: Personal Locator Beacons (PLBs), Personal Locator Beacons integrated into Personal Flotation Devices (PFD/PLB’s), Float Free – self activating Electronic Position Indicating Radio Beacons (EPIRBS). Auto Pilot Alarms, Wireless engine cut offs
• Revised Fishing vessel Code of practice to be tougher and amended to take account of lessons learnt from recent tragedies.
• A New Marine Notice being drafted on use of lifejackets.
• The establishment of a high level working group on safety in the Irish fishing industry.
• A new National Maritime Safety and Emergency Response Strategy to be launched.
• An new enhanced Safety Training Course run by BIM on a five year cycle

Minister Varadkar said:

The first ever national maritime safety strategy announced today is about closing any gaps in services, preventing accidents at sea, and through consultation with stakeholders and the general public, striving to reach a situation where we have no fatalities at sea. The launch of BIM’s scheme backed up with the changes to the Code of Practice and a continued commitment to regulation and compliance with safety standards will help to engrain a culture of ‘safety-first’ on the water.

Minister Coveney said:

I am making €800,000 available over the next three years to fund this scheme and aligned with the new excellent enhanced safety training course being rolled out by BIM will focus primarily though not exclusively on operators of small vessels.

I am also establishing a new high level working group on safety in the fishing industry, to look at all aspects of safety on fishing vessels and to report to Minister Varadkar and myself with recommendations before the end of the year. The new working group will be chaired by Mr John Leech current CEO of Irish Water Safety. Because a common thread of comment in recent times has been the need to pay particular attention on issues surrounding the number of small inshore boats that get into difficulty, I have charged the group with focusing to a large degree on this aspect.