Mr. Eugene Clonan:

All the units are search teams. We need vehicles for towing boats and vehicles for moving the equipment. They have to be extremely mobile. Most units have two four-by-fours and, depending on their functions, may have a cargo van, a quad or whatever, but it is based on that. There is no restriction on using vehicles. If they are on exercise, they use the vehicles. If they are on a call-out, they use the vehicles. The officer in charge, OIC, has charge of his or her vehicles. If they are on exercise or are called out to an incident, they use the vehicles. There is no restriction on using vehicles. In the event of distress or someone being in immediate danger of loss of life, they can put on the blue lights and respond. We are working with the Road Safety Authority. It has emergency driving courses for the emergency services. Deputy Devlin is correct that we are one of the blue light services along with the fire service, the ambulance service and the Garda. For a small organisation there is a huge burden, if you want to call it that, or a requirement to train people to be able to drive safely. All our volunteers have been trained in driving with blue lights. We are a little different from the other three services in that they are allowed to break the rules of the road, basically, where it is safe to do so, whereas our guys must stay within the rules of the road when there is an emergency. We are in discussions with the Department on legislation to amend that. With the other emergency services there are specific blue light driving courses on which you drive at speed and that type of thing. That is in the pipeline.