Keith Swanick (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for coming to the House to address the glaring anomaly in legislation, or lack thereof, covering the Irish Coast Guard. As a medic on the west coast, I regularly liaise with the Irish Coast Guard and experience first hand the bravery and commitment of its members to serving the public while putting their own lives in danger. On every single call out they are exposed to dangers with which no other workers outside the emergency services are faced. As the Minister is aware, the Irish Coast Guard handles approximately 2,500 marine emergencies a year, assists 4,500 people and saves over 200 lives. It evacuates medical patients from the islands on hundreds of occasions. Irish Coast Guard helicopters are tasked around 800 times per year and the service makes 6,000 marine safety broadcasts to shipping, fishing and leisure crafts.

I am honoured to live and work on the coast with these brave volunteers and members of other emergency services which include the National Ambulance Service, the fire service, the Garda and the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, RNLI. When the bleep sounds, as a local general practitioner on call, all of the emergency services work as a collective unit. I have been privileged to take part in rescues at sea, on trawlers of Spanish fishermen and at the edge of cliffs, but,, sadly, there have also been drownings. When a casualty is taken ashore and dispatched via road in an ambulance or via an air ambulance and the emergency services discuss matters on the pier or wherever else, all of the responders are not treated fairly. That is the issue I have. I support the call for the Irish Coast Guard to be designated as a stand-alone primary response agency. On a daily basis its members sacrifice and place themselves at the peril of the Atlantic Ocean and the dangers of the jagged coastline. It is within the Minister's remit to legislate for this cohort of volunteers to put them on the same footing as other emergency service personnel. I am calling on him to engage personally and purposefully with them. Now is the time for action. There is no point in lauding them and telling them what we think of them. The fact of the matter is that there is a two-tier health system and we now have a two-tier emergency response service. Members of the Irish Coast Guard are being disenfranchised and treated differently from other emergency responders.This is unfair. It is time to show these heroes some respect. I invite the Minister to engage purposefully with them and to visit the west coast of Ireland in order to see, at first hand, the work they do so bravely. I think his eyes would be opened if he did so.