Paul Kehoe (Wexford, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am pleased to present the Bill to the House. It provides for the repeal of the Civil Defence Act 2002, the dissolution of the Civil Defence Board and the transfer of its functions and other responsibilities back to the Department of Defence. The purpose of the Bill is to bring the management, development and administration of Civil Defence at national level back into the Department of Defence where it lay from when the organisation was founded in 1950. The organisation was designed to undertake non-combatant activities and to take measures to defend persons and property against an attack on the State from hazards such as radioactive fall-out or biological or chemical warfare. In the context of current policy on bringing the functions of many State agencies back into their parent Departments, the Government has decided that the functions of the board should once again become a function of a branch within the Department of Defence.

As Senators will be aware, the board was established following the passage of the Civil Defence Act in 2002. The stated purposes of that Act were to update Civil Defence legislation generally and to establish a board to oversee and manage the future development of Civil Defence at national level. Apart from establishing a management board to take over the administrative and developmental roles of Civil Defence from the Department and prescribing all of the various duties and obligations associated with a non-commercial State authority, the Act of 2002 did not make any fundamental changes to the governing structures. Policy formulation remained with the Minister. The key relationship for effective Civil Defence operations, that being between local authorities and the organisation at national level, was not altered by the Act of 2002.

I am pleased to say the Bill I am commending will not alter those fundamental structures that have served Civil Defence well over many years and supported the voluntary ethos that has been the hallmark of the organisation since its foundation. The transfer of functions back into the Department of Defence will assist in removing a tier of administration which arose as the board was established as a non-commercial State authority with corporate governance requirements.

I express my sincere gratitude to each and every person who gave up their time to serve with distinction on the Civil Defence Board and equally to the members of each of the statutory committees of the board. Unlike other State authorities, service on the Civil Defence Board was voluntary and attracted no remuneration for members, including the chairman, other than the normal Civil Service expenses for attending meetings. I commend the board and its committees on their contributions to the development of Civil Defence in the past nine years in bringing forward plans and proposals which have driven the evolution of the organisation.

While we live in very different times from those of 1950s, what has not changed is the voluntary ethos which is the hallmark of Civil Defence. People from all walks of life willingly give up their time to be trained over many months to professional standards. This training enables them to effectively support the front-line services. These volunteers can be called away from their families at any hour to respond to emergencies in their communities. We only have to recall the sustained response from Civil Defence volunteers in virtually every county in Ireland to alleviate the effects of the severe weather in recent winters, not to mention the floods in Dublin, Wicklow and Monaghan in October last year. More recently, we have to admire the comprehensive response of Civil Defence to the flooding in the Cork area in June this year.

I wish to highlight the rescue operation following the tragic sinking of the trawler, Tit Bonhomme, in Glandore Harbour, County Cork, in January last with the loss of five lives. In an operation lasting more than 27 days, an average of 36 Civil Defence volunteers per day, drawn from nine local authority areas, assisted with the search for the missing trawler men. An extensive shore-based search operation was co-ordinated by a joint Civil Defence and Coast Guard operations centre. Boat crews from Civil Defence, the Coast Guard, Naval Service divers and Garda divers also conducted searches in the inner harbour area under the direction of the Naval Service. The regional inter-agency emergency response vehicle was deployed and manned by Civil Defence personnel monitoring the search efforts. Their training and professionalism allowed the volunteers to work seamlessly in support of the three front-line services both on land and offshore in a wide range of duties. Almost 8,000 volunteer hours were given by Civil Defence to that operation alone, and I commend all the volunteers who were involved in that operation.

It was very apparent that the training, experience and motivation of all Civil Defence units involved contributed greatly to the successful recovery of the missing fishermen. Their efforts were rightly recognised in the course of a visit by President Michael D. Higgins to Union Hall last April where he expressed his sympathy to the families affected by the tragedy and his gratitude to all the personnel and agencies involved in the search and recovery operation. I note also that the Taoiseach visited the harbour during that tragic time.

In addition to assisting the front-line services in emergency situations, Civil Defence volunteers are very much in evidence throughout the year providing assistance at community events nationwide from local field events, to welcoming home our Olympic athletes, to major events such as the Volvo Ocean Race and the Tall Ships.

Volunteers provide assistance in a multiplicity of roles, including casualty, first aid and rescue, both on land and in rivers and lakes. They provide communications, mapping and search skills, and provide welfare for both emergency personnel and displaced persons. They also work with the Garda, establishing evacuation and reception centres on behalf of local authorities.

All volunteers ask is that they are recognised and supported in their continued efforts to support local communities and that is precisely what is intended with this Bill. As part of the Department of Defence, Civil Defence at national level will now be fully integrated with the planning and implementation of our response capability for major emergencies. This will be achieved by working through the Office of Emergency Planning and the Defence Forces. It will no longer have to devote valuable resources to complying with its own governance requirements, but will be able to devote all its energies to the core business of Civil Defence, which is training volunteers to the highest professional health and safety standards.

I am delighted that we have succeeded in maintaining the current level of funding for Civil Defence at ¤5.585 million per annum in the face of reduced funding to almost all other State bodies in the current economic climate. We see this investment, in supporting Civil Defence activities, as tremendous value for money and it is our intention to maintain that level of funding in so far as possible.

In seeking to capture the wider strategic perspective I mentioned earlier for the future development of Civil Defence, the Department of Defence will establish and chair a forum, comprising the main players in Civil Defence and from the wider emergency response community. The purpose of the forum will be to assist the Civil Defence branch of the Department to consider the major issues affecting, or likely to affect, its development. Central to these deliberations, of course, will be the involvement of representatives of the Civil Defence officers and the volunteers who are based in each local authority area.

I now turn to the main provisions of the Bill. Sections 2 and 3 deal with the dissolution of the Civil Defence Board, the date for which will be set by order. Sections 4 to 6, inclusivje, will ensure that the transfer of land, property, rights and liabilities, leases and licenses from the board back to Minister will take place. Section 7 ensures that any claim in respect of any loss or injury arising before dissolution day will lie against the Minister and not the board. Furthermore, any legal proceedings pending to which the board is a party will continue with the substitution of the Minister in the proceedings. Section 8 makes provisions for functions commenced but not completed by the board before its dissolution. All functions partially completed will be carried on by the Minister. All moneys, stocks, shares and securities registered to the board prior to the dissolution day will be transferred to the Minister. The income of the board was derived from the grant-in-aid from the defence Vote. No shares or securities were registered to the board.

Section 9 provides that the former director general of the board will submit, within six months of dissolution, the final accounts of the board to the Comptroller and Auditor General for audit. Furthermore, he or she must also submit to the Minister the final annual report of the board within nine months and the Minister is required to, as soon as practicable thereafter, lay it before the Houses of the Oireachtas.

The transfer of staff and the director general back from the board to the Department of Defence is dealt with in section 10 while section 11 ensures that any contract or agreement in force before dissolution day between the board and any other person or body shall continue in force in the name of the Minister. Section 12 deals with Civil Defence plans and sets out the requirement for local authorities to submit a plan within 12 months of dissolution to the Minister. The components of the plan are clearly set out for the authorities, as well as a requirement for them to review the plan within three years.

Section 13 amends section 221 of the Local Government Act of 2001 to ensure that annual reports prepared by local authorities will make suitable reference to the performance of its functions relating to Civil Defence, including the expenditure incurred by the authorities in carrying out those functions, while section 14 continues the Department of Defence's grant of funds provided by the Oireachtas for the local authorities for the purpose of defraying expenditure incurred by the authorities in carrying out Civil Defence functions.

The recruitment of Civil Defence members by the local authorities is dealt with in section 15, while the requirement for and the details to be contained within the Civil Defence members register are outlined in section 16. Section 17 repeals the 2002 Civil Defence Act and section 18 deals with Short Title, collective citation and commencement.

The Bill will provide Civil Defence with the ideal platform to strengthen its capacity to continue to develop as a first-class second-line emergency response service while retaining its voluntary ethos and continuing with its community support activities. I am very pleased to submit this legislation for the consideration of the House. I look forward to hearing the views and contributions of the Members in their deliberations and reflections on the Bill which I commend to the House.