Senator claims 'very little, if any' progress in removing abandoned MV Alta

Citing the example of the MV Alta, which was washed onto rocks in east Cork in February 2020, Senator Tim Lombard is critical of the government's inaction in removing abandoned marine vessels

A drone picture of the MV Alta which ran aground on the rocks at Ballyandreen, Co Cork. Picture: Dan Linehan

The Government has been blasted by one of its own senators for its inaction on a ghost ship lying on the Cork coast for more than a year.

Senator Tim Lombard called for the strengthening of legislation to deal with what he called “the extensive occurrence of vessels being abandoned”.

The MV Alta washed onto rocks near Ballycotton in east Cork after Storm Dennis struck Ireland in February 2020. 

A report by the Marine Casualty Investigation Board said it had drifted more than 2,300 nautical miles for almost 500 days before it was shipwrecked.

The ship, built in 1976, had originally been on course from Greece to Haiti in the Caribbean Sea in October 2018, before engines failed in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

While the US Coast Guard rescued the crew more than 2,000km off Bermuda, the ship was abandoned, drifting until it came to its final stop in Cork.

Since then, authorities have struggled to deal with the remnants of the ghost ship, because its owners cannot be identified. 

It could cost upwards of €10m to remove it.

Mr Lombard told Heritage Minister Malcolm Noonan that Cork County Council needed legislative and financial muscle if the MV Alta was to be tackled, and that similar situations were happening across the country in less high-profile cases.

“What happened in Ballycotton is an extreme example, but vessels are constantly being abandoned at piers and in the waters of coastal communities," Mr Lombard said. 

"There seems to be very little progress, if any, on ensuring that they are moved.”

It was akin to leaving abandoned cars in housing estates or on roads, Mr Lombard claimed.

“If there were cars abandoned all over our roads, we would not leave them there.

"We are not empowering anyone or putting financial measures in place to ensure that we can clean up our seas. 

We have debated removing sea litter from our coasts, but we have had a poor debate about how to deal with this legacy issue of abandoned vessels.

Mr Noonan acknowledged Mr Lombard’s claims as correct and said he took them “fully on board”.

Regarding the MV Alta, Cork County Council took the lead in dealing with the wreck under the 1993 Merchant Shipping (Salvage and Wreck) Act, Mr Noonan said.

Ministerial powers under the 1993 Act are indirect, he added.

The Nairobi International Convention on the Removal of Wrecks 2007 provides a legal basis for the State to remove at a ship owner's expense, he said.

“However, it must be noted that the convention does not cover all wreck removal scenarios," Mr Noonan said. 

"For example, when the owner of a vessel cannot be located and insurance details cannot be found, pursuing the owner for costs is very difficult.”