Mr. Eugene Clonan:

If someone comes to me in the street and says that he has a problem with this, that and the other, I will listen to him, see what the problem is and find out if there is any substance to whatever the issues are. When I am visiting the units, that is what I do. The ears are out, finding out how things are going. The audits are going on and from a competency point of view, the team is working. Even when they are responding to incidents, if the incidents are going too high and, as volunteers, they are responding infrequently, I need to look at that too.

They are volunteers and the backbone of our organisation. I do not want people to burn out. We know the implementation of safety management systems and more processes has an administrative burden on a team. We are considering how to manage or deal with that. Volunteers join up to put on the gear, get into a boat, climb a cliff and take part in searches. That is why they join. It is quite onerous for Coast Guard teams to keep up the competencies they have.