Merchant Shipping (Registration of Ships) Act 2014 (No. 43 of 2014).

This Act replaces and updates the Mercantile Marine Act 1955 (as amended by the Merchant Shipping (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1998 and the Sea-Fisheries and Maritime Jurisdiction Act 2006), to provide a legislative basis for the establishment and regulation of a modern and comprehensive ship registration system with a new centralised, electronic and accessible national ship register. The Act provides a basis for an extension of mandatory ship registration to additional ship categories, the introduction of ship registration renewal, and a facility to refuse ship registration and to remove noncompliant ships from the Register. The Act also provides for a number of consequential amendments to other legislation as well as an updated definition of "Safety Convention" in the Merchant Shipping (Safety Convention) Act 1952 in relation to the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) and its recent amendments.
The Act provides for an enforcement of the ship registration regime and the refusal of ship registration and the removal of a ship from the Register by the Minister in a range of circumstances relating inter alia to safety and pollution prevention, qualified persons, compliance with standards and conditions etc. in the interest of preserving the integrity of the Register. Summary prosecution proceedings under the Act may be initiated by the Minister and, in the case of ship registration offences relating to personal watercraft, small fast powered craft and certain small angling boats, the local authority concerned or Inland Fisheries Ireland.
A non-EEA state national residing in the State, may, as an owner, register a ship, except a fishing boat. The Minister may remove a sea-fishing boat from the Register in any of the following circumstances: (a) when a sea-fishing boat licence granted in respect of the boat, is revoked, suspended or ceases to have effect; (b) when the boat is required under section 4 (inserted by section 97 of the Maritime Jurisdiction Act 2006) of the Fisheries (Amendment) Act of 2003 to have a sea-fishing boat licence but at the time of registration did not have such a licence, and has not acquired such a licence within 6 months of the grant of a non-operative registration.