A FORMER Galway mayor has criticised Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern for failing to respond to an all-party motion calling for an inquiry into a controversial boat sinking in north Mayo.
The motion called for a public inquiry into the sinking of the Iona Isle, owned by Erris fisherman and Shell to Sea supporter Pat O’Donnell in Broadhaven Bay in June 2009.
Independent Galway City Councillor Catherine Connolly said yesterday she was “very disappointed” at Mr Ahern’s response to the motion passed by Galway City Council last March.
Ms Connolly said it was clear Mr Ahern had no intention of initiating an inquiry. She has also questioned “why Mr Ahern’s response was only being made public at this time – nine months after the city council’s motion, and within days of an An Bord Pleanála decision on the final section of the Corrib gas project”. The councillor was commenting on last week’s report in The Irish Times in which Mr Ahern told the local authority that the Garda investigation into the sinking of the Iona Isle had concluded that there was “no evidence of third-party involvement”.
Mr O’Donnell and crewman Martin McDonnell were out tending gear when they alleged that their boat was boarded by four men in wetsuits at 4am on June 10th, 2009.
Two of the men reportedly went down below, two were allegedly armed and held the skipper and crewman in the wheelhouse, and all four left when the boat’s engine cut out and it started to flood.
O’Donnell and McDonnell – neither of whom can swim – took to the boat’s life raft, and Mr O’Donnell reported the incident to Belmullet Garda station at 4.43am and said that the four men had sped north in a rigid inflatable. The two men were subsequently rescued by a sister vessel owned by O’Donnell and taken ashore by Ballyglass lifeboat.
Shell issued a statement denying any involvement. The then minister for Gaeltacht affairs Éamon Ó Cuív supported a call made by the Green Party’s then justice spokesman Ciarán Cuffe for a full inquiry.
Mr O’Donnell said the 12-metre boat was insured for €60,000 but there was no cover for loss defined as an “act of terrorism”.
The boat was not salvaged by the Garda, and Supt Michael Larkin of Belmullet Garda station subsequently informed Mr O’Donnell on November 23rd, 2009, that the Director of Public Prosecutions had directed there would be no prosecution.
Ms Connolly said she believed the Minister was effectively “snubbing” a request by 15 democratically elected members of a city council.
“We have not yet been forwarded his letter, but it is clear that he is just repeating the findings of a Garda investigation, and I would question why this has been given to a newspaper before we were aware of his response,” she said.
Mr O’Donnell told The Irish Times that he had not been happy with the Garda investigation at the time. “How do the gardaí know there was no third-party involvement, when they did not set up checkpoints at ports after I had reported the sinking,” he said.
“My call was logged at 4.43am, and there was a sighting of a man getting into a car with a wetsuit on at Killala at around 7am,” Mr O’Donnell said.
“The gardaí then said that there had been no rib landing at Ballyglass – but I never said that the four men went to Ballyglass. I said they sped north,” he said.
A spokesman for the Minister said he had given his response to the council’s motion in recent weeks and that he was satisfied with the Garda investigation.
In a separate development, An Bord Pleanála has turned down a request from north Mayo community group Pobal Chill Chomáin to reopen the oral hearing into the Corrib gas pipeline, due to a disparity in information given by the Corrib gas developers.
The board is due to rule on the pipeline application shortly, having deferred a decision due at the end of last month.