A multi-million euro exploration and development project for the Lusitania is planned by the wealthy American owner of the wreck, Mr Gregg Bemis, if he gets approval from a High Court judge.
Last Friday, at the age of 76, the New Mexico-based entrepreneur made his first dive on the remains of the famous Cunard liner which lies 300 feet on the seabed off the Cork coast, almost 12 miles south-west of the Old Head of Kinsale.
Mr Bemis's exploration proposal, which he estimates will cost about €3.6m, is on hold pending the result of a legal action he took against the Government, claiming they were blocking his plans. He won a declaration of ownership of the wreck in courts in Ireland, Britain and the US in the mid-1990s. The liner was torpedoed by a German U-boat in 1915 as it made its way from New York to Liverpool. It sank in 18 minutes with the loss of 1,195 lives. A total of 764 passengers survived the disaster.
Mr Bemis believes there was a cover-up and wants to find out if the liner was carrying munitions and high explosives which detonated and caused the second blast. In 1995, however, the Government placed the country's first underwater heritage order on the wreck. It only allows Mr Bemis to "look but not touch". Mr Bemis described the liner, which at 790 feet long is equivalent to the length of Grafton Street in Dublin, as "delightful".
"It is immense even though visibility down there was only about 20 feet. I managed to give it a kiss and we got that photographed," he said.
Any exploration of the wreck would involve the making of a television documentary, the recovering of items for donation to museums and for sale and an investigation into the mysterious second blast.
"It is just criminal to have it lying down there where very, very few people are ever going to see it and where it is slowly self-destructing.
"Nothing archaeological is being preserved."