Mr. Ted Owens:

It was an expensive boat. It was given to us by a generous donor at the time. When the boat was received by Cork VEC a due diligence exercise was initially carried out and it put a group in place to consider whether it would be of use to the VEC. It was used for four years or more for the purpose for which it was given. However, boats can be expensive to maintain. That boat had a very strict safety and passenger licence. It was licensed to carry up to 12 passengers up to 12 miles offshore. I do not think that is necessary any more. We hope to use the boat.

We do a lot in this area in west Coast. We can forget sail training, because that will not be done unless everything can be put in place, but we hope to use the boat for boat maintenance repair courses we run. In the past FÁS ran some of those courses as did the VEC. We can use the boat for teaching deck handling skills. I can assure the Deputy that the boat will not cost a substantial amount of money. A cost of €150,000 was mentioned to put it right. That boat is an iconic vessel and there is awful lot of goodwill towards it. Between voluntary labour and donations from various groups, that boat might well sail again but not in the immediate future. As to putting it back in the water, we have been stringent on funding and we spent €2,500 to put it in the water. That is the type of money that was being paid to keep it in dry storage.