Ms Deirdre O'Keeffe:

I thank the Chair and the committee for the opportunity to come here today for this discussion on the Irish Coast Guard. Let me begin by introducing the team here today. My name is Deirdre O’Keeffe and I am the assistant secretary with responsibility for maritime transport in the Department of Transport. I am accompanied this morning by Mr. Eugene Clonan, who is acting as director of the Coast Guard, by Mr. Niall Ferns, who is a manager in the Coast Guard, and by Mr. Liam Keogh and Mr. Phil O’Flaherty, who are principal officers in the Department, with responsibilities in the area generally.

I will make a brief opening statement to explain how the Coast Guard fits within the Department of Transport and the national search and rescue system generally. Mr. Clonan will then make an opening statement providing an overview of the Irish Coast Guard, as requested in the meeting invitation.

I will begin with how the Irish Coast Guard fits within the Department of Transport. The Coast Guard is a division of the Irish Maritime Directorate, which comprises all the parts of the Department that deal with maritime transport. Our mission is a safe, sustainable maritime transport sector which will facilitate maritime transport services and the safe use of the maritime environment, meet our international obligations and domestic needs, deliver a world-class emergency response service and promote and protect Ireland’s economic interests as an island nation. A key element of this is an effective maritime emergency response across the three areas of search and rescue, maritime casualty and pollution response. Mr. Clonan will go into more detail on each of these areas in his opening statement.

In July 2019, the then Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport published a new national search and rescue plan aimed at placing Ireland at the forefront of international best practice in the area of search and rescue. The general aim of the plan is to make our search and rescue services better and safer for all those involved. As part of this work, a new National Search and Rescue Committee was established to provide strategic co-ordination, guidance and leadership for search and rescue in Ireland. A key aim was the rebalancing of the previous maritime-centric search and rescue framework to encompass land and air search and rescue more comprehensively.

The Irish Coast Guard operates within the general framework set by the national search and rescue plan and is a key participant in the deliberations of the National Search and Rescue Committee. The Irish Coast Guard has been engaged in a considerable programme of change over recent years. This programme, which is continuing, is designed to provide a safer and more effective search and rescue service to all concerned, both those members of the public who may benefit from the service from time to time, and the members of the Coast Guard organisation, whether full-time employees or volunteers, who are involved in providing the service. While the programme will provide a better and safer service for all concerned as it rolls out, the roll-out of the programme itself, like any organisational change programme, provides some challenges, both for those involved in rolling it out and those affected by it.

In recent weeks, members will have heard of disharmony among some volunteers in one of the Coast Guard volunteer units on the Irish coast. We would like to reassure members that the Coast Guard, both head office staff and local management in the area, have been working tirelessly to address the problems experienced in this unit and will continue to do so, with a view to restoring the service in the area as quickly as possible. Members will be aware that Minister of State, Deputy Hildegarde Naughton undertook to provide further mediation in this regard on an urgent basis, and indeed the mediator, Mr. Kieran Mulvey, has already been appointed. Plans are in hand for his meetings with the volunteers early next week.

It is also worth pointing out that the 900 or so Coast Guard volunteers around the Irish coast, who do heroic voluntary work on behalf of the Irish people, have several channels available to them to make their views, positive or negative, known to their local volunteer management or to management generally. This is because their views from the ground are extremely important to inform decisions and developments in the area. In particular, the volunteer representative organization, the Coastal Unit Advisory Group, represents all 900 volunteers through a committee including both elected volunteers and their local management. This group, which has been in place for some 20 years, was reviewed at the request of the volunteers in recent years to be even more responsive to the concerns and suggestions of volunteers.

The Coast Guard is a significant buyer of products and services. For this reason, a review of the Coast Guard procurement process, as part of the organisational change programme, has been under way for some time. This review has identified some shortcomings in the Coast Guard’s procurement processes and actions have been taken, particularly in the areas of staffing, training and new protocols over recent years, to address these. There are also a number of legacy issues which we have been tackling and will continue to tackle over the coming months to ensure that any gaps or deficiencies are identified, rectified and, where necessary, dealt with. Our aim is to ensure that all procurements are conducted in accordance with all legal and administrative arrangements to ensure that the correct procedures are followed. Our monitoring, compliance, awareness and education frameworks are being improved as we seek to ensure that the smallest procurements are treated with the same rigour, thoroughness and attention to detail as the largest procurements.

I would also like to take the opportunity to mention the final report of the Air Accident Investigation Unit, AAIU, into the Rescue 116 air accident, which was published recently. Once again, I want to extend the Department’s heartfelt sympathy to the families of Captain Dara Fitzpatrick, Captain Mark Duffy, Mr. Ciaran Smith and Mr. Paul Ormsby, who were close working colleagues of many members of the Irish Coast Guard. The Minister has already confirmed that the Department fully accepts the recommendations contained in the report. Given the size and complexity of the report, the Department will require some time to fully examine in detail the report’s findings and recommendations. However, it will respond to the chief inspector of air accidents in respect of each safety recommendation addressed to the Minister in advance of the deadlines set.

I conclude my opening statement and will pass to Mr. Eugene Clonan, who is acting as director of the Irish Coast Guard, to present his opening statement.