Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I just do not get what the obsession with the UK is here, as if we cannot have a bidder from the UK. The current search and rescue contract is primarily with a UK company and it has done an extraordinary job. Yes, it is very expensive for the State, but we have saved many lives as a result of it.

This is primarily the responsibility of the Department of Transport.

The steering committee to get this right also involves significant input from the Department of Defence and the Air Corps itself. I have no sight of likely bidders or proposals, so I just do not know where that is coming from. All I would say is that we have a number of years to prepare for a new search and rescue contract. It involves a very substantial amount of public money. I would like the Air Corps and the Defence Forces to be as involved as possible in the shaping of the new contract, but I want to make sure that what is committed to can be delivered and then that we can plan for training and investment around that. It may be the case that when we look at this in detail the options may be quite limited. The most important issue here is that we provide a very comprehensive search and rescue service around the coastline.

I can remember on the previous occasion this issue was being discussed in 2010 and 2011 that I asked very similar questions to the ones Deputy Brady is now asking. I asked why we could not invest hundreds of millions of euro in the Air Corps to build capacity and to provide search and rescue capacity instead of outsourcing the job to somebody else. I got very comprehensive answers as to why that could not be done. As I already stated on the record, I am very interested in trying to do as much as we can through the Air Corps in terms of contributing to search and rescue capacity around the coastline. I also recognise that there is a process in place with much expertise and experience planning for when the current contract runs out.

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