Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Months ago when all this emerged, another colleague from Clare, Deputy Carey, and I received floods of emails from the county and we addressed them in this forum. However, even as that meeting was taking place, I recall that my telephone was beeping. There were Coast Guard units around the country watching proceedings here, and they are probably tuned in today as well, and they were sending emails suggesting questions because they had the same problems wherever they were. What I believed to have been a localised problem appeared to be way more widespread. The witnesses have a difficult job in trying to represent all that and gather it together. It was not even a homogenous position in Clare. There were very different views and opinions, so the witnesses have a very difficult job. We would love to hear that relations between the hierarchy and the volunteers have improved. It seemed to me that day, and we had to ask them to come here, that they were remote from us and they felt they were remote from their units. I would love to hear that this has improved significantly. Based on recent correspondence in Clare, I do not know if it has.

I will conclude with that. I thank the witnesses for all they are doing.