Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The organisation of the Civil Defence falls under the jurisdiction of the Department of Defence. It is managed by 35 local authority Civil Defence officers and has approximately 3,500 volunteers. From the bottom of my heart, I want to salute the work they have done over the decades.

Eddie Cooney, who is not well at the moment, was the officer in charge in south Tipperary for decades. He has now retired and is laid low. I wish him well. Dolores Fahey is now in that office. I was going to bring something on the subject of volunteers to the attention of Deputy Cathal Crowe, but he has left the Chamber. I remember attending a summer camp in Lahinch when I was chair of the council. I was looked after by the late Fine Gael councillor, Jimmy Hogan, and his late wife, who were both wonderful officers. They looked after me and my three children at the Munster final in Limerick on the way. It was a joyous occasion.

The Civil Defence does great work. Over the decades, it dealt with floods in Clonmel. Thanks to the former Minister of State, Martin Mansergh, and others who helped to provide funding, we now have a scheme that is 95% successful at keeping out water. The Civil Defence is still on hand to help out when there are floods, someone is missing or there is a water outage. I think the Civil Defence is abused by local authorities and Uisce Éireann in terms of delivering boil water notices or whatever. We need to respect it and not use it for such purposes.

There have been a lot of cutbacks in recent years and the Civil Defence is limited in what it can do. It used to provide great assistance, such as traffic management at funerals and so on. A lot of those things have been pulled back from it because of insurance and everything else. Volunteers loved doing such events, but the rules and regulations have denied them the ability to do so.

The Bill proposes to consolidate a number of Acts. I hope it does. Legislation can often have unintended consequences.

It is now very difficult to get volunteers, as the Minister knows. The voluntary fire service has tremendous people who were pushed aside and have been told their tenders are not up to standard, but such services were local to the people, were the first to arrive at a scene and dealt with many difficult cases.

In the case of the Civil Defence, they have pride in their vehicles, uniform and colleagues. They assist at many festivals and community events which others do not attend. As gardaí are thin on the ground, community events and field days are attended by the Civil Defence. To be fair, the Order of Malta and the Red Cross have done tremendous work over the decades. We must strengthen the Civil Defence. We must have the motto of ní neart go cur le chéile and the idea of the meitheal. That is how the Civil Defence works. Uisce Éireann and others cannot use it for other purposes.

The previous speaker mentioned monuments and parades at weekends. I agree with every word he said. People are hijacking the Tricolour and many events. Political parties, some of whom are in this House, have hijacked the Liam Lynch memorial monument. My dad was proud to be the clerk of works when it was constructed. There were 12 members of the committee and my dad was joint treasurer. Most of the men had served in prison, the War of Independence and the Civil War. It is a national commemoration, but some people want to claim ownership of the monument which was built by the sweat and blood of people who handed stone from hand to hand. Some arrive as new kids on the block and think they own the monument. Nobody owns the Tricolour, but the Army is proud to represent it. Nobody owns the reilig of Liam Ó Loingsigh. Many members of his family are coming to commemorate him. There is another event in Fermoy on 11 April. We look forward to a proper weekend of commemoration. The Tánaiste attended the ceremony in the past. We will not allow it to be hijacked by anyone. The monument was built by the people of Newcastle, Ballybacon, Ardfinnan and Grange. The money came from America. I saw the letters my father received when he was treasurer containing a shilling, a half crown or whatever. It was built with sweat, blood, tears and pride, and it will stay that way and remain in the ownership of the committee.

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