The Ospar Convention agreement on the marine environment has been described as "landmark" by the Minister for the Marine and Natural Resources.
Dr Woods, who led the Irish delegation to the two-day conference in Portugal, welcomed the decision to end dumping radioactive waste at sea and defended Ireland's approach on the Sellafield issue, which had been criticised as too weak by the Green Party and Greenpeace before the conference opened.
"Of course Ireland would like to see Sellafield closed. But these are very important steps towards that. This represents a firm commitment on Britain's part to begin reducing discharges, and it would be niggardly of us not to recognise that," Dr Woods said, speaking from Portugal.
While the Minister of State for Energy, Mr Joe Jacob, focused on the Sellafield issue, a range of measures agreed at the convention meeting will also pave the way for "cleaner, safer waters", according to Dr Woods. The ban on marine disposal of offshore installations under 10,000 tonnes in weight will have a significant impact for Ireland, he said.
Britain's softening of its stance on dumping of platforms at sea means that all large steel installations under 10,000 tonnes will be removed from the North Sea, down to their "footings" or 15 to 30 metre bases. Where practicable, footings will also be removed, according to the ministerial agreement.
Disposal of footings on some 41 rigs of over 10,000 tonnes - out of a total of 720 in the OSPAR area of the north-east Atlantic - will be decided upon on a case by case basis. The World Wide Fund for Nature has welcomed the decision, and has said that Britain and Norway - the principal licensees for such structures - had "come a long way". Britain had been seeking to keep open the option of dumping platforms of more than 4,000 tons in water depths of over 75 metres, in spite of the international outcry surrounding Shell Oil's attempt three years ago to dump its Brent Spar rig.
Most of the work to remove redundant rigs will not take place until after 2004, according to Dr Woods, who said this would have implications for Marathon on the Kinsale Head gas field, and for all future installations off the Irish coastline.
Ireland supported the land-based recycling, reuse or disposal of rigs, except in cases where dumping at sea can be backed up for scientific/environmental reasons.
The Minister said he warmly welcomed British and French agreement to drop their proposed exemption from a complete ban on dumping of radioactive substances at sea. Dr Woods also raised the issue of munitions dumping, in spite of the fact that this was not on the original agenda. Contacts at political and official level between Britain and Ireland on the Beaufort Dyke dump site off Scotland had intensified in recent weeks following the appearance of phosphorous devices on the Irish east coast.
A new annex to the OSPAR convention on biodiversity, which extends protection of the marine environment to conservation of ecosystems - as distinct from water quality - has also been welcomed by Dr Woods. This would protect fragile species of flora and fauna in the marine environment, but would not impact on commercial fishing as this was covered by the EU Common Fisheries Policy, he said. However, the World Wide Fund for Nature has criticised this opt-out, stating that much damage to species is caused by bottom trawls and other fishing gear.
A new strategy to eliminate pollution by hazardous substances, produced by industry, agriculture and domestic sources, has set a dateline of 2020. Ireland already had a good record in this area, and hoped to meet the deadline well before 2020, Dr Woods said. Last night, the discussion on hazardous substances had also reached preliminary agreement on preparation of a priority list of such substances.
