Ms Aileen Nolan:

I thank the members for all those questions. We will work our way through them. We can group some of them as we go.

I will address Senator Craughwell's question on the Department of Transport, the Coast Guard and a possible duplication of services. I will also touch on Deputy Berry's question on the similar issue of governance falling between two Departments. The governance issue was looked at as part of Towards 2030. It was considered whether Civil Defence should be moved to the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage but it was felt it was already working out very well. It was decided as part of that policy to leave it the way it is.

On Senator Craughwell's question on the Coast Guard, there is a different focus in respect of maritime search and rescue. In our policy document, Towards 2030, search and rescue is one of the objectives but is not the overall objective. As I said, there is also emergency response, medical response and community assistance so it is a slightly different focus. Again, we do not see enough synergies there. It is a very different focus and we do not see that those services should be joined up.

The second question was around the numbers. Deputy Brady asked about confusion around the numbers as regards establishment numbers versus what we report as active volunteers. He is right that different numbers have been bandied around. The number of active volunteers is approximately 2,600. Prior to that, we saw numbers of 3,500 or 4,000 mentioned but the reality is, as data have improved, volunteers were there who were not active volunteers but were on the system. We have cleaned up the data and, during the Covid pandemic, some people stepped back from volunteering. We think 2,600 or so is the correct number for active volunteers at the moment.

On how we decide what the establishment of the right number should be, as I mentioned, each Civil Defence unit, through the three-year plans, decides for its local county based on a number of factors, including geography, topography and population, what services need to be provided and, therefore, the number of volunteers they need. The last time around, when the three-year plans came in, it was coming in at approximately 2,800 volunteers. We are now getting new plans in for the next three years. We will have an updated number when we get all those plans in and collate the information. Does Mr. Dalton want to contribute on that?