Government criticised over salvages

The brother of the skipper of the Pere Charlestrawler, which sank off the southeast coast in January and is still to be raised, yesterday said the Government needs to educate itself about search and salvage procedures.

The bodies of Pere Charlesskipper Tom Hennessy (32), his uncle Pat Hennessy (48), Billy O'Connor (50), Pat Coady (27) and Andriy Dyrin (32) have not been recovered since the vessel sank about 4km off Hook Head on January 10th.

The Honeydew IIthen sank 32km farther west off Mine Head just hours later, with two crew members being rescued after spending about 18 hours in a life raft. But skipper Gerard Bohan (39) and his Polish crewman Tomasz Jagla (32) were lost.

Last week, the Government advertised for tenders for raising the Pere Charles, along with the Maggie B,which sank off Hook Head in March 2006. Glynn Cott (30), single and from Ballycotton in Co Cork, along with Polish crewman Jan Sankowski, died when this vessel sank about 8km south of Hook Head. Another Polish man, Krzysztof Pawtowski, was rescued.

The notice on the e-tenders website, the site for Irish public tenders, invites contractors to raise both trawlers and related equipment up to the August 17th deadline.

The advertisement said the contractor must "deliver them upright either alongside or on quay wall in Arklow harbour or other suitable harbour in Ireland that the contractor may suggest".

"No unnecessary further damage" should be done to the trawlers, while "missing crew may still be trapped within the wrecks and methods used to prevent escape", the ad warned.

The relatives of the missing crewmen from the Pere Charlesand the Maggie Bin April met privately with then minister for transport Martin Cullen and minister of state for transport Pat "the Cope" Gallagher in Waterford. Mr Cullen told the meeting that a salvage operation would be carried out on the sunken trawlers.

The Pere Charlesand Maggie Bwere steel trawlers and could be raised, while the Honeydew II, a wooden vessel, would have received much more damage and could not, it emerged in April.

Pat Hennessy, brother of Pere Charlesskipper, Tom, yesterday said: "This has been very frustrating and I think the Government took their time in doing their work and realised how little they knew about the salvage process.

"The impression we got is that they had very little knowledge and that they'd have to educate themselves in the necessary procedures.

"We are wondering why no debris or bodies have been found . . . At least we'll know one way or the other and we'll get as much closure as we can."