Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I will deal with the Chairman's question first. It is something I have asked about myself. It is an issue and we will provide the Chairman with the exact figures of how much it costs. We all despise it. Not alone is there a cost impact, but there is also an alignment and co-ordination impact if a real issue arises somewhere else. Much of the time it is difficult to track down these people but if we can, they should be dealt with very severely in my opinion because they put other people's lives at risk.

Deputy Dooley and I come from opposite ends of the Shannon, where the serious rescue on Lough Derg took place last week. I live beside the difficult area in which it happened and saw from my house many people being rescued. The co-ordination of the various units was fantastic. It shows the value of the work these people do. I understand exactly the point made and it is something which raises its head. We must balance the pendulum and not disincentivise people from being rescued because they think there will be a financial cost. We must ensure safety is the number one issue. In 95% of cases a safety issue has arisen, but in 5% of cases somebody needed to be collected. If the latter figure increases, then from a cost point of view we must judge whether we need to put in place a charge. We monitor this from year to year. At present the answer is "No" because we do not want to disincentivise people from being rescued, but it is a valid question.

To answer Deputy Ellis, the high increase relates to the new search and rescue contract. The changes in the figure for administration also relate to this. Overall, from a departmental point of view, administration costs are decreasing.

I take on board Deputy Fleming's comments on maritime tourism.