The safety of car ferries and their design will be among the issues discussed at an international maritime conference which begins in Dublin today.
The conference, which takes place in Jurys Hotel until Friday, is organised by the International Marine Transit Association, an umbrella group for ferry operators worldwide. The title of this year's conference is "Conventional Versus Unconventional Ferries".
The conference was originally scheduled to receive the final report into the sinking of the Estonia, which sank in the Baltic Sea in September 1994 with the loss of nearly 900 lives.
However, as the report has not yet been published, conference organiser Ms Kerstin Loven told The Irish Times yesterday that a panel of naval architects and ferry operators would instead discuss the consequences of the Estonia disaster and its implications for ferry safety.
The conference will also discuss trends in ferry regulation, the use of "intelligent technologies", traditional and non-traditional ferry design, fast and slow ferries, and International Maritime Organisation regulations and their interpretation by national authorities.