I welcome the Minister's assurance that the Marpol Agreement will be signed in the near future. Since it would be necessary that containers be provided at ports around the country to dispose of garbage from ships — after signature of this agreement — would the Minister say who would be responsible for the cost of providing such containers? For example, will it be the responsibility of shipowners, the harbour authorities or the Department of the Marine?

I would expect that it would be the harbour authorities who would be responsible for them. It is difficult for me to give a straight answer to that because some harbours come directly within the overall responsibility of the Department of the Marine, whereas, for example, Rosslare comes under the aegis of CIE. Therefore, I cannot give an across-the-board answer to that. It is sufficient to say that there will be an obligation on the people responsible for individual harbours to provide receptive facilities for waste and garbage. I fully agree with the Deputy when he says that this is an important development, in that shipowners henceforth will not have the excuse that they have nowhere to put their garbage or waste.