Abandoned trawler in Kinsale shows 'State's effort to remove shipwrecks has been left to rot'

Senator Tim Lombard cited the case of the MFV Cismair abandoned in Kinsale for 13 years, and the MV Alta which was washed ashore near Ballycotton in February 2020

The MFV Cismair has been abandoned close to the old bridge crossing in Kinsale for over a decade.

An abandoned trawler which has been rotting against a quayside in Cork for over a decade is proof that the State’s efforts to deal with abandoned ships and wrecks is apparently dead in the water.

Senator Tim Lombard made the claim on Thursday after he raised the issue in the Seanad for the second time since May 2021, and got effectively the same response.

He cited the case of the MFV Cismair, an abandoned trawler which has been tied up and rotting close to the old bridge crossing in Kinsale, Cork, for around 13 years, and the more recent high-profile case of the MV Alta ghost ship, which was washed ashore near Ballycotton, Co Cork, in February 2020 during Storm Dennis, and which has since broken in two.

Ireland’s legal framework for the removal of wrecks is governed by the 2007 ‘Nairobi Convention on the Removal of Wrecks’. But Ireland has not ratified it yet and so it has no legal standing here.

Primary legislation is required to ratify it and to provide a legal basis for the State to remove, or have removed at a ship owner's expense, a wreck that has the potential to affect adversely the safety of lives, goods and property at sea, as well as the marine environment.

But Mr Lombard said the State has done little or nothing to bring forward that legislation.

Senator Tim Lombard: said: “Nothing has changed, no progress has been made." File picture: Jim Coughlan

“We have been talking about the need to deal with this for several years but it’s up to the transport minister to bring forward that legislation and it hasn‘t happened,” he said.

“If you have an abandoned car in a housing estate, the local authority is responsible for removing it. But if you have an abandoned ship on the coastline, it would seem that no one wants to take responsibility for it.

What really annoys me is that you have volunteer groups out cleaning beaches every weekend, and yet just up the coast, you can have these large wrecks just abandoned and rotting.

“And we have a Green Party minister. But it just doesn’t seem to be on his radar.”  The Department of Transport has been asked to comment.

Mr Lombard also criticised the transport minister for not coming to the Seanad chamber himself to respond to his query, sending instead a minister of state from a different department, as happened in May 2021.

“I was told then that the department intended to progress this legislation as part of a future bill and I was given the same response on Wednesday,” he said.

“Nothing has changed, no progress has been made.

“I’ve written to Minister Eamon Ryan to express my frustration. I also requested an update and timelines on plans to bring forward the primary legislation required to ratify the Nairobi International Convention.”