Dinny McGinley (Donegal South West, Fine Gael)

After 43 years of being responsible for search and rescue operations, the Air Corps was relieved of that responsibility yesterday afternoon. This brings to an end a glorious chapter in the history of the Air Corps. Not only did it carry out search and rescue missions but it always responded promptly to requests from coastal communities and islands down through the years. Will the Minister give us an undertaking that the new company taking over from the Air Corps will respond in the same manner, always free of charge to the island communities? Is the Minister aware that only the week before last, a seriously ill woman on Tory Island had to depend on the Arranmore lifeboat to bring her ashore in my parish? That very sick woman then had to travel a further 40 miles to hospital. If the Air Corps or the new service had been available she would have got to hospital in a matter of minutes rather than hours.

I put on record our appreciation of the Air Corps staff. The words of the well-known song, "Those magnificent men in their flying machines", could be applied aptly to them. Given what the Minister has said, I hope there will be a role for these people in future. They have accumulated much expertise and experience over the years so it would be a pity if the Air Corps was not available. When people said "Tá siad ag teacht" on Tory or other small islands, they were not referring to the lasta or the currach but to those helicopters. Their withdrawal is a body-blow to the morale of the Air Corps. When the new Minister examines the matter with an open mind, I hope he will reconsider the future role of the Air Corps in this regard because it has been doing this work for 41 years.

I wish the new company well. I have absolutely nothing against private enterprise, no matter where it is located, and if it matches the service we got from the Air Corps we will be happy. After the long campaign to have Air Corps personnel based locally, I would hate to see those people being reassigned elsewhere and, thus, no longer available on the west coast.

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