Call for maritime expert to coordinate incidents

The wreck of the MV Alta which came aground west of Ballycotton is proving to be an “insurmountable bureaucratic obstacle” to any practical steps to deal efficiently with the situation in Ballycotton, according to Captain Neil Forde, a consultant from Marine Hazard Ltd.

“We are going to have a major maritime incident at some point, it is just inevitable,” he says. “We were lucky this time, it was just a small incident. The council might say that there wasn’t a large amount of fuel in the ship’s tanks or that there is no visible pollution but it has been released because you can smell it from the cliffs,” he’s quoted as saying in the Irish Examiner.

“The county council, who even with the best will and intention, is only going to be able to deal with small incidents, has been pushed into dealing with this by the current legislation.

Pic: Howard Crowdy

“The issue that I can see is that there has been a few days flapping around when we should have been dealing with the salvaging expeditiously. We can’t afford to be going into debates over which agency is responsible, delaying by trying to find out who the owner is, or who is the insurer. What are we going to do, ring the owner up and tell them to sort it out? The longer we leave it, the more it will cost. 24 hours ago, we might have been able to float her off.

“The state needs to appoint a Secretary of State’s Representative (SOSRep) as they have done in other jurisdictions to deal with similar maritime incidents,” he added.

“Their job is to say to the different agencies ‘you are going to do this’, no ifs or buts about it, and to deal with the situation quickly.” He says if a major ship or tanker was beached on our shores, we would be in “serious trouble” with the current approach.

Meanwhile, Cork County Council has issued a warning to members of the public who are trying to board the wreck.

“The Council is again advising members of the public to stay away from the wreck location as it is located on a dangerous and inaccessible stretch of coastline and is in an unstable condition.”

Read the full article in the Irish Examiner.