Michael Colreavy (Sligo-North Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the gentleman for attending this morning. I represent the constituency of Sligo-North Leitrim. I am fairly familiar with mountain rescue in the area and know many of the volunteers. I met with the team four or five weeks ago because they were aware this hearing was taking place and they wanted to mark my cards, so to speak.

I do not have any questions because I understand the value of what the representatives do. It does not make any sense that we insist on charging VAT on the essential products the volunteers need to carry out their work. I am a great believer in the maxim that we should always try to make it easy for people to do the right thing. The representatives are doing the right thing, and VAT is penalising them for doing the right thing. It does not make sense to charge VAT on those products and I will be pushing for this committee to recommend to Government that VAT be removed from the products they use.

The second major issue raised by MRI is that it does not have a home Department. It operates an emergency service, responding to 999 calls. Pobal is funding them this year but perhaps not next year. Mr. Christie stated that the funding was not sustainable.