Mark Daly (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport for coming to the House to take this Commencement matter. As I am sure he is aware, the Valentia marine rescue co-ordination centre is the busiest of our three centres. He may also have received a report on why it should be closed given that every Minister coming to his Department receives a report written by some official in the permanent Government advocating its closure. The issue I raise today concerns the appointment of a resident engineer to the centre. I understand the position was advertised and located in Cork. Malin and Dublin have resident engineers but even though Valentia is busier than those centres its engineer will be located 200 km away from it. The engineer will be responsible for maintaining VHF communications with a considerable number of sites along the Cork and Kerry coastline. The Joint Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport discussed at length an incident that occurred during the last attempt by the Coast Guard Service to close Valentia and move its operations to Dublin. Galley Head communications network was down for six months.Within five days of it being repaired, it was the only receiver station to manage to pick up a distress signal from a ship that went down near Galley Head. The reason we were given for it not having been fixed was that the engineer had been out sick for six months. Yet a piece of infrastructure as vital as that was not repaired. It is hard to understand why the engineer who will be servicing our busiest marine rescue co-ordination centre will be based 200 km away while Malin and Dublin will have theirs on site in residence. Perhaps the Minister might enlighten us as to why Valentia is being discriminated against while Dublin and Malin will have their engineers on site.