Conference hears of untapped economic potential in Irish coastal waters

MORE is known about the surface of the moon than about life at the bottom of the world’s seas, a conference in Dublin heard yesterday.

Delegates were told Ireland’s seabed has untapped economic potential, yet relatively little is known about the vast array of marine life off our shores.

One of the conference’s organisers, Dr John Joyce, of the Marine Institute said relatively little was known previously about the 220 million acres of seabed that forms part of Irish territory. It equates to an area approximately ten times the size of the land area.