THE Minister of State for the Marine, Mr Eamon Gilmore, will meet two British government ministers next month to assess a report on the dumping of munitions at the Beaufort Dyke in the Irish Sea.
Mr Gilmore will discuss a management plan for the site with Lord Lindsay, the environment minister at the Scottish Office, and Lord Howe, a minister of state for defence.
The report is expected to be published in November after the completion of a survey by Britain's Scottish Office of the dump site between the coast of Scotland and Northern Ireland.
It follows a pilot test earlier this week when gas was transmitted for the first time via a new pipeline from Scotland to Ballylumford station in Co Antrim. When the pipeline was being laid last year it disturbed phosphorus canisters which washed up on the shores of Co Antrim and along the Scottish coast.
The Department of the Marine and local councils in Scotland, England and Northern Ireland expressed concern about the munitions, and the survey of the site showed that weapons were dumped outside the designated Beaufort site and close to the Scottish coast.