Mr. Bill Smith:

The age profile varies. As Mr. Spain said in his opening statement, there is a strong extended-family tradition to membership of Civil Defence. It tends to be father-daughter, brother-sister, etc. While I do not have a definitive figure, the gender balance would be approximately 50:50. There would not be a huge differentiation between the genders. The age profile has varied. The volunteers coming to us in more recent years would tend to be somewhat older than those who would have come to us five or six years ago. They come to us with more experience, have driving licences and experiences from their working lives. We tend to get more experienced and better-trained people coming to us in recent years.