Joe McHugh (Donegal North East, Fine Gael)

I welcome the Minister to the House to take this Adjournment matter which is general and national in nature. I presume she will present a comprehensive statement on her commitments and all the good jobs in decentralised projects that are on stream, but I will be parochial on this topic and with good cause.

There is a fear in the most northerly part of the country that the Coast Guard station on Malin Head will be made redundant in the coming years. I am worried about its future. In 2002 a report was commissioned from Deloitte & Touche which cost the taxpayer €145,000. It highlighted two centres — one on Valentia and the other on Malin Head — as the main centres for the Coast Guard service. In 2004 the then Minister, Deputy Dermot Ahern, approved one of the proposals in the Deloitte & Touche report concerning these two centres. The crux of the matter is that in 2006 there was a change of thinking as to where the main centres would be located. The two centres now on the table are in Drogheda and at an unknown location in the west. What is the Government's real commitment to decentralisation vis-À-vis existing State jobs? There are 18 such posts on Malin Head. The Deloitte & Touche report proposed that upwards of 28 jobs be located there in the next five to six years. Is the Minister committed to the original Deloitte & Touche report's suggestion which was sanctioned by the Cabinet? Is she committed to Malin Head and Valentia being the locations of the two main centres, or will she and her colleagues go against the Government's decentralisation policy?

Deloitte & Touche made its proposal on the basis of the Government's decentralisation policy. I know the Minister will cite a long report about all the things that have been done and are planned, but she should give a commitment that these two stations will remain as priorities in the future provision of Coast Guard facilities.

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