Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Civil Defence officers for being here today. I have great memories of my time with the Civil Defence as a young man and indeed as a drill instructor for competitions. It is a great organisation. I have a bit of a problem, though. We seem to duplicate a lot of services in the country. We have the Coast Guard carrying out search and rescue, and we have Civil Defence carrying out search and rescue. It strikes me that all search and rescue should come under the one department. Given the number of volunteers and the disciplinary structure that exists within the Civil Defence service, it strikes me that Civil Defence should encompass search and rescue for the nation including seagoing, air and land search and rescue, mountain rescue and so on. I would be interested to know what the members present think about that.