They call it the "blue box", and already jokes are being cracked about how to gag it in the wheelhouse. Come the summer, the EU wants to introduce satellite tracking of fishing vessels at sea, and Ireland is at the forefront in developing technology to do so.
Given that this island has the second-largest sea area in the EU, this is no mean achievement, and one of which the Flag Officer of the Naval Service, Commodore John Kavanagh, could justifiably be proud when he signed a contract with a consortium of consultants on the flagship, Le Eithne, in Dublin Port late last week.
The first, £670,000 phase of the multi-million-pound agreement aims to analyse and design a system for fisheries control, based on the existing technology applied at the naval base in Haulbowline, Co Cork.
This technology dates back almost a decade; and then, as now, necessity was the mother of invention. This State has the smallest navy or coastguard in the Community, backed up by two maritime patrol aircraft. Fishery officers have to work in some of Europe's worst sea conditions, a factor not always taken into account by deskbound bureaucrats in Brussels and Dublin.
The fleet of seven patrol ships was fitted with computer technology linked to the INMARSAT satellite communications system. The resultant Geographical Information System (GIS), compiled from information gathered by the fleet, is an encyclopaedia of fishing activity within the Irish 200-mile exclusive fishery limits, and one studied by many other European states. Not only can it call up an individual vessel's record and fishing techniques, but it can track vessel movements from Cape Horn to Greenland.
The "blue box" broadcasts a signal which is picked up by the INMARSAT. The signal gives the identity, the time and the position of the vessel. This information is relayed back to computers at Haulbowline which hold extensive information about trawlers working our waters.
Built in association with the computer industry here, the system is now being redesigned to meet new EU/Department of Marine requirements in co-operation with a consortium led by the company Ernst and Young.
As Mr Paul Farrell, a partner in Ernst and Young and a former Army commandant, describes it, the project will allow for greater access to and implementation of EU regulations emanating from the mid-term review of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) in 1992.
These new EU requirements include electronic tracking of vessels, initially those over 24 metres in length, and monitoring of fishing activity by effort, rather than quotas.
Catch-reporting and entry/exit reporting to and from Irish waters will also be provided for in the system. Satellite monitoring via INMARSAT has already been tried on a pilot basis with several Irish vessels in a project known as Lirsat.
The "second generation" project, named Lirguard, will involve initial analysis in a 16-week time-frame.
The initial satellite monitoring phase will be confined to industrial trawlers, distant-water vessels and ships fishing in non-EU or "third country" waters and on the high seas. So only a handful of Irish vessels, in the Killybegs super-trawler league, will be affected until wider application by the EU in two years' time.
When up and running, the system will obviate the need for a "gateway" or "weighbridge" system of reporting in to patrol ships.
A separate contract will then be awarded for construction, and the aim is to have sea trials running by early next year. The Naval Service is transforming its national supervisory centre into a fleet monitoring centre, which could well be equipped to serve Europe (and a nascent common security and defence policy) in some not-too-distant future.