The Marine Casualty Investigation Board is unlikely to investigate the circumstances surrounding the sinking of a shellfish boat off Erris Head, Co Mayo, yesterday as it was “not accidental”.
This follows a call by Green Party TD Ciaran Cuffe for a "full investigation into the incidents surrounding the sinking" of the 12-metre
Iona Isle.
Mr Cuffe has written to both Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern and Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey, requesting Garda and MCIB inquiries. It is understood that the MCIB will discuss the issue at a board meeting early next week, but it is understood that it believes the issue to be a criminal matter and beyond its remit.
Mr O'Donnell and crewman Martin McDonnell were rescued from a life-raft, after they say that the vessel was boarded at around 2am yesterday off Erris Head by four armed men in diving suits who held them in the wheelhouse.
The vessel sank shortly before 4.30am and a distress signal was picked up by Malin Head Coast Guard. Mr Cuffe said that the sinking "raises tensions on all sides" in Mayo, and for this reason it was important to establish all the facts.
Údarás na Gaeltachta has also passed a motion calling for an independent inquiry.
A spokesman for Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern said that that matter was one for the Garda Siochána. Chief Supt Tony McNamara confirmed today that an inquiry was being conducted, as Mr O'Donnell had reported the incident to Belmullet garda station. However, he said that Mr O'Donnell was "not co-operating".
Mr O'Donnell said that he would be co-operating through his legal representatives, but said that he and his crewman were still in a state of shock yesterday when they were met at Castlebar General Hospital by four detectives and a uniformed Garda who had asked them to hand over their clothes.
"I was not able to give them my clothes as what I was wearing was the property of the RNLI lifeboat,"Mr O'Donnell said. "The RNLI provided me with dry clothes at Ballyglass lifeboat station," he said.
Mr O'Donnell, who runs a shellfish company in north Mayo and received a State marine award for his part in the 1997 Belderrig cave rescue, has been vocal in his concern about the impact on the marine environment of the Corrib gas refinery discharge pipe.
