Calls to overhaul Marine Casualty Investigation Board

Minister for the Environment Eamon Ryan has signalled changes to the 'structure and composition' of the Marine Casualty Investigation Board. File picture: Julien Behal

An Oireachtas Committee has heard the Marine Casualty Investigation Board (MCIB) needs to be overhauled, while the Minister for the Environment has also signalled changes to the "structure and composition" of the organisation.

Both international maritime lawyer Michael Kingston and Environment Minister Eamon Ryan addressed the Oireachtas Transport Committee in relation to the MCIB, the composition of which was the subject of a European court ruling last summer.

The minister was before the committee to discuss the General Scheme of the Merchant Shipping (Investigation of Marine Casualties) (Amendment) Bill, after the members of the committee had voted to discuss it rather than waive it through to the next stage of the Oireachtas.

The five-person board of the MCIB typically comprises three members appointed by the current minister for transport and two other people, the chief surveyor of the Department of Transport and a nominee of the secretary general of the department. 

However, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruling declared that, by failing to provide for an investigative body which is independent in its organisation and decision-making of any party whose interests could conflict with the task entrusted to that investigative body, Ireland had failed to comply with its obligations under Article 8.1 of Directive 2009/18/EC. 

Two board members were requested to resign and did so last July.

The minister said it was essential the Bill pass through the Oireachtas as he said he did not want to "run the risk that we might not have sufficient number of board members to allow the MCIB to do its work".

Maritime lawyer Michael Kingston lost his father Tim in the Whiddy Island disaster in 1979. Picture: Dan Linehan

Mr Kingston – who referred to his own father’s tragic death in the Whiddy Island Disaster in 1979 – told the committee that "the simple fact is that the MCIB was doomed from the start" because it had not followed international best practice in terms of its composition.

He said it was essential that, instead of another review, the MCIB should be "an independent investigative unit with competence" and there was a need to "decouple regulator from investigative system".

"People need to understand that you can't have the regulators, in fairness to them as well, investigating their own work," he said.

Barrister Ciaran McCarthy, who also addressed the committee, said maritime legislation was "absolutely opaque" in this country and needed to be overhauled.