THE British registered Spanish fishing vessel, which was detained in Bantry for a further 48 hours yesterday after the death of an Irish skipper in a collision at sea on Sunday, has been arrested twice in the last six years for alleged fishery offences in Irish waters.
The 32 metre, steel hulled Sea Horse was not licensed by the Department of the Marine and the EU to fish in the area where the collision occurred with the Irish registered Exodus.
There is no evidence that it was working at the time - some 10 miles south west of Dursey Island, within Irish territorial waters - but it is believed to have set down untended gear further out to sea.
The 16 metre, woodenhulled, Exodus was trawling and sank rapidly after the initial impact.
The Sea Horse, which is owned by a Milford Haven company, was detained in 1991 and 1993 for alleged logbook offences in the Irish exclusive economic zone (EEZ). It had made its entry/exit reports for its latest trip under the new control mechanism within the Irish Box.
An investigation has already begun into the circumstances surrounding the encounter, which occurred in broad daylight and in good weather conditions.
At a special sitting of Bantry District Court yesterday afternoon, a detention order for a further 48 hours on the Sea Horse was sought by the gardai and granted.
The three fishermen on board the Exodus were picked up by the Sea Horse, but one of them, the skipper, Mr Danny "Boy" O'Driscoll (42) of Castletownbere, who had returned to the wheel house while the others took to the liferaft was in the sea for a time and never regained consciousness.
The Department of the Marine has defended the decision to airlift only the skipper ashore on the Irish Marine Emergency Service (IMES) rescue helicopter.
But the decision to leave the other two crew on board the Sea Horse until it got to port, and to divert it from Castletownbere to Bantry, has been described as "barbaric" by the chairman of the Irish South and West Fishermen's Organisation (IS&WFO), Mr Donal O'Driscoll.
Speaking in Castletownbere yesterday, Mr O'Driscoll said that one of the two surviving crewmen only had a shirt on when he had to abandon ship.
"Leaving the lads on the Sea Horse, and then prolonging the agony by an extra three hours by diverting it further up the coast to Bantry was scandalous," Mr O'Driscoll said. "Even then, the men were held aboard for another hour and then taken to the Garda barracks."
The Department of the Marine, which has initiated the official investigation into the incident, has said that the diversion was a Garda matter.
The collision has focused attention on a catalogue of complaints lodged by the IS&WFO of alleged harassment and rammings by French and Spanish vessels off the south west.
Most of the incidents have taken place outside the 12 mile limit, where the State has no remit beyond economic matters such as fish stocks, or to take action under the Vienna Convention which allows the Naval Service to board foreign vessels suspected of involvement in illegal imports.
In 1992, two Waterford fishermen died after a collision with a French trawler. Two French crew members were subsequently found guilty of negligence.
In that case, legal proceedings were instituted by the flag state, France. However, the law is unclear in the case of flagships, which register in another EU member state to avail of that quota.
The flagship issue has been highlighted by Britain at EU level, with less than lukewarm support from the Irish Government - in spite of the fact that many of the flagships fish off the Irish coast.
