Ireland does not require leisure vessels to be registered if confined to the waters of Ireland and/or the uk. Outside of this for international voltages your vessel is supposed to be registered on the
commercial ships register.
For a second hand boat the whole process is a pain and requires you to prove the vat and
ownership right back to the EU importer. There is no equivalent small ships register like the uk SSR. ( so
registration involves surveys and measuring etc ) So therefore many do not register. As a non
legal substitute you can use the ISAs small vessel
registration scheme. It has no
legal standing but tends to keep the fuzzy fuzzies at bay . ( occasionally it doesn't in
Portugal especially villamoura as the lady there knows her onions ) If you can it's worth getting be full registration ( even if the resulting document doesn't fit in any
modem photocopy machine as its huge )
As to a ships radio if one is fitted you need a ships license AND a operators cert for one person on board. Note that you can only apply for an Irish ships radio license using a Irish,, German, Finnish, radio operators license. You cannot one if you have an RYA operators
VHF license. The license is now a fixed fee lifetime one. ( 30 euros I think) you cannot legally get a ships license for a hand held
vhf alone, Epirbs,
radar and any other emitting device are also supposed to be listed on the ships radio license, few bother. Epirbs are registered separately on the Irish
Epirb database. Note that' certainly until recently and it may have changed it is not possible to register GPIRBS on the Irish Epirb database, check before you buy.
Contrary to what was said , if you have a
DSC fitted radio you must and will be provided with an mmsi.. Since the
sale of non dsc radios is effectively forbidden in Europe for several years now, you'll generally need an mmsi.
Abroad proof of
insurance will the
single most asked for item. you will not get into any marina without it. If sailing in
Greece you may need an authorised translation into Greek , but in practice I've used the
English version
No competency cert is required in Ireland and the only country requiring one officially in the
med is
Croatia, where a long list of Certs are excepted including ISA , RYA and
ICC Certs of various types all of which can be obtained in Ireland. Some countries officials like in
Portugal mistaking beleive that the
ICC is required as your country requires it. However it's a rare occurrence and I wouldn't fret about it. ( get something if you can ,) the ICC is a on
water and theory exam but relatively easy, only the ISA can issue irish nationals with an ICC , despite what some RYA schools tell you. ( you must have an ISA qualification to automatically claim a ICC, eg an ISA day skipper ticket automatically qualifies you for the ICC )
Dave