John Deasy (Waterford, Fine Gael)

I am pleased to have this opportunity to speak about marine safety and the safety of merchant shipping, particularly the search and rescue services that provide that safety and especially the services, as my colleagues said, that exist in the south and south east. The Minister was not present for the matter we raised on the Adjournment last night on which Members from the Labour Party, Fianna Fáil Party and Fine Gael Party spoke. It is worthwhile repeating some of the points made because they are pertinent to a service on which people's lives depend. Decisions that will be made by the Government in the next week will affect the lives of fishermen and people who use the water, not only people offshore but people inland who rely on our Coast Guard service and have done so in my area since 2004 when Members on the opposite side lobbied successfully to have a 24-hour service in the south east.

With regard to what has occurred over the past three or four days, it began this week at a meeting with senior officials of the Department of Transport and the head of the Irish Coast Guard Service. A comparison of the subsequent comments by the Minister with the comments of the officials we met on Monday reveals some contradictions and extreme variances. First, and possibly most significantly, the Minister made it clear in an interview he gave on Monday at a road opening in Kilkenny that the Coast Guard service was the entity which made the recommendation that went to Cabinet and that the Cabinet decided on regarding the three and a half bases and the downgrading of the service in Waterford after 2013. It was made clear to us at the meeting on Monday that this was not the case. In fact, the Coast Guard service submitted a range of options to the Department.

The Department was the entity that crafted and constructed the recommendation that went to Cabinet and no one else. Therefore, it is completely wrong, misleading and untruthful to say that the Coast Guard service was the entity that issued that recommendation. We asked the officials specifically about the process and that is what they told us.

With regard to the Minister's comments about a better service being created for the south and south east, that is simply not the case. The officials made it clear to us at the meeting on Monday that they could not say it was a better service for the south or south east because, in a case of emergency, the helicopters would not arrive as quickly after 2013 as they do now. That represents a massive variance and a contradiction of what the Minister has been saying during the week.

The meeting we had on Monday and the debate that has continued throughout the week rests upon one simple premise, namely, how can much more money, in this case €20 million extra per year, be spent on a service and there be a downgrading of an aspect of it? That is simply down to bad governance. It comes down to a cost of €1 million per year for the protection of south and south east coastlines in terms of the search and rescue service and the availability of an extra €1 million. The Department officials made it clear to us that the Department did not have the required €1 million. When one examines the issue, the way Government is proceeding, what has occurred during the past five or six years and the mismanagement the Government is culpable of, one can point the finger of blame directly at the mismanagement by Government when it comes down to a small amount of money that would maintain the search and rescue service in the south east after 2013.

I have asked the newly appointed Minister of State at the Department with responsibility for fisheries, Deputy Seán Connick, and the newly appointed Minister for Defence, Deputy Tony Killeen, to examine the budgets in their Departments, which have direct relevance to seafaring issues, the subject of merchant shipping that we are discussing and fisheries. There is also the relationship between the Coast Guard service and the Department of Defence. In other words, I am doing the work the Government should be doing. No one in the Government seems to be bothering to come up with the money required through different Departments that have direct relevance to the Department of Transport. Collectively, this would not be a hard thing to do. From among those three Departments, particularly in regard to the fisheries area and the protection of fishermen, it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that those Departments could take time to make those necessary contacts to try to work this out.

I said on the Adjournment last night that I noted a massive contradiction. The Road Traffic Bill was debated in the House yesterday and I will not go into the argument of the rights or wrongs of it, the specific element of the blood-alcohol level and the lowering of the those levels. The premise for the Bill and the lowering of the blood-alcohol levels was that it might save five or six lives over the course of a year. That argument was trotted out by many Members, including the Minister. This approach is contradicted by the decision to remove a night-time marine health and safety service as its removal will affect lives. While the Government justifies the lowering blood alcohol levels for drivers by a purported concern to reduce road deaths, its decision not to fund an essential safety service after 2013 will have an effect on people's lives. That is a major contradiction.

I live alongside the channel of the Colligan River as it enters Dungarvan Bay. In the six years that I have lived in my home I have been woken at night at least four times by the Coast Guard helicopter fishing bodies out of the channel or searching for people who have fallen or jumped in at the quay in Dungarvan. It takes 45 minutes for an emergency helicopter to be loaded for take off. This means 45 minutes will elapse before the helicopter is off the ground. Even if the new helicopters are 50% faster than those they will replace, provided there are no head winds a further 30 or 35 minutes will be needed to reach Dungarvan.

I have been told by helicopter crews and others involved in this area that the pocket of sea where most problems arise is 50 or 60 miles south of the Hook. The reason we need a helicopter in Waterford is to deal with incidents where people get into difficulty. While the Minister may argue that the helicopters are faster and the service will be better, people who get into difficulty in my area will be more vulnerable and will die if an appreciable period elapses before a helicopter arrives on the scene.

There is a week left before the contract is signed. The Government must change the decision it made. As Deputy John Browne, chairman of the Fianna Fáil Parliamentary Party, stated in the Chamber last night, the decision is daft and does not make sense. It is bad government, a poor use of resources and money and it will cost lives.

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