Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

At the outset, I wish to remember Paddy Moloney, who sadly passed away earlier today at the age of 83. Paddy was a great ambassador for Ireland and for Irish music.

Chinese aggression towards the democratic island of Taiwan is intensifying and should be giving rise to concerns that China will try to take over the island by force. We have already seen how Beijing used a heavy-handed approach to impose its authoritarian ways in Hong Kong. Ireland is a member of the United Nations Security Council and must speak out against any and all aggression by China. As an act of solidarity, now might be a good time for the Government to open an office in Taipei. In addition, we have spent months if not years talking about the fate of Richard O'Halloran who is still in China. It is simply not good enough that he continues to be detained there at this stage.

The Irish Coast Guard and its volunteers, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, RNLI, and the search and rescue helicopter service form the backbone of first responders for rescue at sea. At the weekend, one of the Sunday newspapers carried a headline, "Coast guard 'has to fix toxic workplace'". I was not surprised to see this headline because for some time I have been receiving reports of problems within the Irish Coast Guard. Despite the fact that the acting director of the Irish Coast Guard has rejected the claim that volunteers have been targeted or subjected to unfair disciplinary inquiries, the evidence suggests that he must be totally out of touch. As a result, the Irish Coast Guard is now in a crisis situation and there has been a complete breakdown of trust between volunteers and management. The volunteers have been forced to set up their own representative body because they are so afraid of the way things are going. Coast Guard members voiced their concerns following two separate incidents that shook the organisation. First, a report by the Marine Casualty Investigation Board, into the death of Cathríona Lucas in September 2016 off the coast of County Clare after an inflatable boat she was in capsized during the search mission, was critical of the safety management systems in place at the time. Second, the long-awaited report on the accident involving Rescue 116 in March 2017 with the loss of four crew will, I believe, be damning of the corporate governance of all of the organisations involved with search and rescue, and will be particularly damning of the oversight of the Irish Coast Guard.

Equally damning is the fact that the officers in charge of a number of stations around the country have been forced to resign or have been dismissed. The officer in charge of Dunmore East was dismissed in 2019 despite having served for more then 20 years with the Coast Guard. The officer in charge of the station in Youghal, County Cork, having spent ten years in the position, resigned in January 2019. At the time, he complained about the poor treatment of volunteers in recent years and wrote in his resignation letter, "I feel I can no longer serve an organisation that values its volunteers so poorly". Another officer in command of the station at Killala Bay, County Mayo, resigned after 20 years of service. If this is not a crisis, then nothing is. We need urgent action to bring about a resolution in respect of this matter.

Finally, on behalf of those of us who visited the naval base in Cork last Friday, I want to thank the flag officer for his downright openness and honesty with respect to the crisis that is in the Naval Service. That is a matter I will raise in the coming days.