A case against overcrowding on 'Réalt na Maidne' the Aranmore fast ferry was dismissed at a sitting of Dungloe District court on Tuesday.
The Minister for Transport took a case against ferry operator Seamus Boyle, Leabgarrow, Aranmore and skipper Brian Byrne of the same address.
It was alleged that on September 7 and 10, 2008 in an area spanning between Aranmore and Burtonport the o
wner of a class P3 passenger boat had on board an amount of passengers which exceeded that by passenger boat licence.
An authority on merchant shipping, Marine Surveyor Robert O’Brien in his evidence told the court that subsequent to inspection in 1997 the ferry had been allowed to carry a maximum of 12 passengers and two crew members. The licence had been issued and valid during the time of the alleged incident.
The court heard that two independent witnesses would give evidence in relation to the incident. Irish Coast Guard Timothy Boyle in his evidence told the court that on September 10 he had gone to Burtonport on personal business and had seen the ferry come to pier.
He noticed that the ferry was sitting low in the water and he noticed a lot of people coming off the boat.
“I counted 26 people get off the boat and two crew members were left on the boat.” He subsequently notified his superiors.
Solicitor on behalf of the accused, Sean Boner pointed out to the court that Mr Boyle’s son-in-law worked for the competing ferry at the time and had since bought the ferry.
Mr Boyle said: “My son-in-law bought the ferry in November 2009 I think. This incident happened in September 2008.”
The court heard that the tender for the ferry was now the subject of High Court Judicial review and that the subsidy from a governmental department was worth over one million euro for a period of five years.
Mr Boyle told the court that he was not aware of this.
Irish coast guard, Martin McFadden also gave evidence to the court. He said that on September 7, 2008 he had been assigned to carry out a survey on the number of people wearing life jackets in the Burtonport area.
He said: “My purpose was to check who was and who was not wearing life jackets.”
Mr McFadden who was a volunteer for the organisation for three years said that he saw 14 people disembark from the fast ferry during the time that he was carrying out his assignment. He did not have a notebook with details relating to his assignment in court.
He denied that his main concern was to find out how many people were on the ferry on that day when the question was put to him by Mr Boner. The Judge said that he found it very amusing that Mr McFadden had happened “to come by chance on this crime.
