§ Chris RuaneTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will make a statement on co-operation between the UK Government and the Irish Government on monitoring pollution in the Irish Sea. [44005]
§ Mr. Meacher[holding answer 21 March 2002]: There has been extensive co-operation in recent years, including shared research programmes, between the UK and the Irish Government on the pollution of the Irish Sea, particularly in the production of the Quality Status Report (QSR) for the Celtic Seas in 2000.
590WThis report, which is available in the Library, forms part of a wider assessment made within OSPAR, the Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North East Atlantic. It concluded that ecosystem effects due to pollution are generally confined to urbanised estuaries and that environmental effects of most contaminants routinely monitored appear to be either stable, or decreasing, with the main problem being caused by tributyl tin.
Co-operation continues through the joint work undertaken in the OSPAR Monitoring and Assessment Committee.
Although there is no specific co-operation on monitoring of radioactivity in the Irish Sea, officials from the UK and the Irish Government meet on a bi-annual basis in the form of the UK/Irish Contact Group on Radioactivity where information on monitoring of the Irish Sea is passed to the Irish side.