Marie Moloney (Labour) | Oireachtas source

Always in a woman they say. I thank the witnesses for attending and, I hope, for taking on board our concerns. Valentia is a small, vibrant community in Kerry and the threats of the closure of the Coast Guard station and the local hospital are hanging over the heads of people and draining the lifeblood out of the community. We cannot put a price on that. I am always fascinated by how people from Dublin seem to think that centralising everything in Dublin is great and is the answer to everything. We fought this battle previously with the ambulance service. We had a lengthy battle with the HSE as it tried to move the ambulance station to Dublin. It is all very well to ask someone in Dublin but nobody has mentioned local knowledge. One cannot overstate local knowledge. I do not care what anyone says; it cannot be beaten. If someone in the Dublin office is asked where is Tousist or Ballinskelligs, he will reply they are in Killarney but they are a long distance from the town. Local knowledge cannot be beaten and no one can put a cost on that. It has to be taken into consideration.

I have a number of straightforward questions and I hope I will get straightforward answers. Why were Leeson Lane and Blanchardstown eliminated from consideration when Fisher Associates was commissioned to conduct the value for money report? What are the running costs of the Leeson Lane and Blanchardstown sites? Why are no costings provided for them in the report? Malin Head and Valentia Island Coast Guard stations are in State ownership. More than €800,000 has been spent on the refurbishment of Malin Head station and a similar amount will be spent on the ongoing upgrade costs for Valentia Island station.

In addition, as has been stated, Kerry County Council recently spent €150,000 of State money upgrading the access road to Valentia Island station. A lot of money has gone into something the Department is considering closing down and that has to be taken into consideration. What is the cost of the alternative to closing these stations? We estimate that it is about €5 million so we would like to hear Mr. Mullen's estimate. We had a recent meeting with the Minister during which he said he thought there were very little, if any, savings to be made so why are we going to all this trouble if that is the case? I would appreciate straight answers to those questions.