The Irish Water Safety Association has called for an adventure centre standards authority to be set up in the wake of the death of an English visitor while diving in Dingle at the weekend.
Chief executive Mr John Leech called for on-the-spot checking of marine and outdoor centres in Ireland and other countries, and for uniform standards of training. He said people should only dive if they have received appropriate training.
Mr Leech said he was not commenting directly on Monday's fatality in Dingle, as he did not know all the details.
However, the general point was that a standards authority, which had been promised and for which legislation was in place, urgently needed to be established.
The Department of the Marine said yesterday that the area of marine safety was under review and that the new Maritime Safety Directorate would be taking responsibility for the area of diving when it was up and running.
Meanwhile, Mr Neal Clayton, co-owner of Dingle Marina Diving Centre which organised the dive in which the 25-year-old English woman lost her life on Monday, said the woman had half a tank full of air left.
As far as they knew after carrying out tests, her equipment, which was rented, was in good working order, he said.
Gardaí have preserved the diving equipment for technical examination as part of the investigation into her death.
The woman was named as Ms Heather Schofield, Whalley Road, Hurst Green, Clitheroe. She was holidaying in Dingle with her mother and her body is expected to be flown home today.
She set out on a dive organised by the diving centre at around 10 a.m. off the Bull's Head area, to the east of Dingle town.
She was accompanied by another diver. Divers are not allowed down on their own, and there are always a minimum of two people on a dive.
The pair were with three others in the diving party, Mr Clayton said.
Ms Schofield's diving companion came up after about 20 minutes because he wasn't feeling too well. Ideally, Ms Schofield should have come up with him. However, it was assumed by those on the surface that she had stayed with the three other divers.
The alarm was immediately raised when they surfaced and there was no sign of Ms Schofield, he said.
Divers attached to the Dingle centre, along with a group of divers from Athlone search and recovery, made two dives to find and recover the body.
Mr Clayton said they were shocked to discover that the Coastguard did not have a search-and-rescue dive team on standby when they raised the alarm.
The marine rescue helicopter from Shannon was called in, and the Valentia lifeboat and Dingle Coastguard also assisted. Surface searches were conducted.
Bull's Head, with depths of about 20 metres, is popular and considered a safe diving area. It attracts visitors from all over the world.
The area has interesting rock formations and is also popular with night divers.