Mr. Chris Reynolds:

In regard to the scale of the maritime operations centre, this is a European concept. We were audited by the European Maritime Safety Agency and visited by Frontex, which is the European border guard agency, and we explained how the centre has been co-located with the marine rescue co-ordination centre, headquarters staff and the other emergency services in the same building, including the air accident investigation unit, maritime safety policy unit and maritime shipping unit, and down the road from the national emergency co-ordination centre.

One has this enriched decision-making and resourcing within this one centre. Both Frontex and EMSA said this was the ideal model that could be found.

If the Deputy looks at what Europe is doing around the different coast guards, no two coast guards are the same. Ourselves and the UK are about the closest one can get. The UK has merged response activities into singe centres and co-located them to provide surges in staff. We tend to man our centres for day-to-day work. That is what people expect to do but there are major incidents and one has to be able to surge extra people with expertise in there. That is what is happening in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and Iceland and, for example, SASEMAR and the MRCC are located in Madrid. The UK has built a €14.5 million national maritime operations centre down the road from the Coast Guard headquarters. They are not co-located but there are 100 people in the centre. That is the concept Europe is beginning to adopt. It is the concept of every coast guard model in the world. One wants to get as many coastal set activities in that room as possible. The ideal model for Ireland would have the Navy and customs at sea service in the room as well. That would be an add-on but that is where additional effectiveness and efficiencies are in that model.

On the Galley Head issue, the Deputy is correct that it was down. Galley Head is a sub-area with only one channel on it. That was down for five months. We did not have within our old analogue system in Valentia Coast Guard station the capacity to put in additional aerials We will have with the new ICS system when it goes in after Christmas. We recognise we need to fill in the gaps better in three areas in Ireland. No coast guard will ever say it has 100% coverage; one can never can get that. However, we recognise there are areas of work we have when it comes to our marine VHF coverage around the coast. The other areas are Clew Bay and north-west Donegal. We recognise there are areas we have to work on.