A Wexford skipper who steered a drunken course through Cork harbour last December received a six-month suspended sentence yesterday at Cobh District Court, in the first case of its kind to come before an Irish court.
Declan Cummins (35) pleaded guilty to being intoxicated while in charge of his trawler, Silver Harvest, on December 8th, 2002, having nearly collided with an oil pipeline on that day.
The deputy Harbour Master, Mr Michael McCarthy, told Cobh District Court that the 30-ft trawler had been seen zig-zagging erratically in the harbour and at one point, it was headed for a pipe line carrying oil from a refinery in Whitegate. However, Cummins, from Arthurstown, New Ross, managed to change course with just 100 yards to spare.
Mr McCarthy told Judge Murrough Connellan that if the trawler had not avoided a collision with the pipeline, containing diesel, oil and gas, the impact would have been catastrophic.
"It was an extremely dangerous situation," Mr McCarthy said, adding that a concerned port operator, who monitored the antics of the trawler on radar, had alerted him to the danger. "The operator tried repeatedly to contact the vessel and asked him why he was zig-zagging in this manner, but he got no satisfactory explanation."
A pilot boat with harbour officials went out and boarded the trawler. When they boarded, officials found Cummins to be so drunk that he was unable to stand and had no idea what he was doing and he had to be helped into a Garda squad car later that evening in Cobh.
"I informed him I was taking the vessel back to Cobh because he was a danger to himself, his crew and other shipping both in the port and outside," Mr McCarthy told the court.
He indicated to the court that in his opinion, no one on the Silver Harvest was capable of being in charge on that day and had it made it to open sea, it would probably have sunk with the loss of all hands on board.
Cummins pleaded guilty to being drunk while in charge of the trawler, in a channel which sees more than 5,000 vessels using its lanes each year.
The court heard that the defendant was an experienced fisherman of 21 years, that it was a once-off occurrence at a time when he was experiencing personal problems and that he had "fallen to temptation" in drinking before heading out to sea.
Imposing a six-month suspended prison sentence, Judge Connellan warned that Cummins's behaviour on the day was "quite chilling" and could have had appalling consequences. He ordered him to be on good behaviour for a year and also fined him €750.