Government may have to buy second research ship

THE State's new marine research vessel, Celtic Voyager, is fast becoming a victim of its own success. Such is the demand for its use that the Government will have to consider purchasing a second and larger ship soon.

The second vessel will have to be at least 60 metres long - twice the length of the present craft, according to Mr Michael Gillooly, of the Marine Institute's Fisheries Research Centre. Speaking on the final day of the Year of the Ocean Conference in Dublin Castle yesterday, Mr Gillooly reported that the Celtic Voyager had already attracted 400 sea days of research work for next year.

Recording 260 seagoing days annually, the vessel is stretched to its limit. The permanent crew of six - which has no relief panel - has commercial fishing experience and is highly committed, Mr Gillooly said. The ship has been running 30 programmes a year since it began work in July 1997. 30 billion annually, according to UN computations quoted recently by the Naval Service. Monitoring of marine radioactivity in Irish coastal waters during the past decade indicated that discharges from the British Nuclear Fuels Ltd plant in Sellafield were the principal source of contamination of our coastal waters, representatives of the Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland told the final session of the three-day conference.

While it was clear that activities at Sellafield resulted in contamination of this marine environment, to which the Irish population was exposed, the doses received were very small and did not constitute a significant health risk, the RPII said.