The families of the five men lost in the recent sinking of the Dunmore East fishing vessel Pere Charles have called on the Government to salvage the vessel from the seabed.
The families have issued their joint request through the Irish Coast Guard to allow for a thorough search of the hull, but also to establish the cause of the vessel's sinking some two miles off Hook Head on January 10th.
This follows an independent assessment of film footage taken of the hull by Naval Service divers.
No bodies were found during extensive searches at sea and on the coast after the French-built vessel vanished from radar screens while returning to Dunmore East on January 10th.
On board were skipper Tom Hennessy (32), his uncle Pat Hennessy (48), Billy O'Connor (50), Pat Coady (27), and Andriy Dyrin (32).
Hours later on January 11th a second vessel, the Honeydew II, sank just 20 miles farther west off Mine Head.
Two crewmen were rescued but skipper Ger Bohan (39) and his Polish crewman Tomasz Jagla (32) were lost.
After the Pere Charles hull was located, the Naval Service documented a series of dives on film, which will be used in the official investigation by the Marine Casualty Investigation Board (MCIB).
It is understood the families have been advised that the film covers only one-third of the vessel's interior, where it lies in 35m of water.
Pat Hennessy, brother of Tom Hennessy and nephew of Pat Hennessy, said: "If the vessel had been lifted immediately during the first spell of good weather, we might have been spared several weeks of waiting to establish whether the bodies were on board or not, and it would also be available to the investigators.
"I cannot understand how an investigation could be conclusive when there are no survivors, no boat to examine and only film footage," Mr Hennessy said.
In the most recent precedent the Rising Sun lobster boat, which sank off the Saltee islands on November 29th, 2005, was raised last year at a cost of €435,000 on the order of the then minister of state for the marine, Pat the Cope Gallagher.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Transport, which is now responsible for the Irish Coast Guard, said that any decision to raise the vessel was a matter for the MCIB as part of its investigation.
