Martin Conway (Fine Gael)
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I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Lawless.

Malcolm Byrne (Fianna Fail)
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Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit. I want to raise the question of support for community rescue boats, in particular Cahore Inshore Rescue Service. It is in a part of the world with which we are both quite familiar. It is a beautiful part of the world with a great deal of wonderful coastline. Cahore Inshore Rescue Service provides a vital service to the north Wexford community. It works very closely with the Coast Guard based out of Courtown. It is a volunteer service that was formed almost 30 years ago following a tragic local drowning. It is very active in our local community. It is on call 24-7 every day of the year in case, unfortunately, we see problems on our waters.

The only funding it receives from the Government, like many of these services throughout the country, including a number of mountain rescue services, is a grant of €5,000 annually from the Minister of State's Department. This grant has not been increased in 15 years and it is the same for all of these services. Cahore Inshore Rescue Service's annual running costs are something of the order of €25,000 every year. This is similar to the other services. The €5,000 grant will barely cover the cost of insurance to provide what is a vital service. If Cahore Inshore Rescue Service was not providing the service, the pressure would come on the State to provide it instead.

The big question I want to ask is not so much about the ongoing costs, although certainly an increase in the grant would be appreciated, it is about significant capital costs. Cahore Inshore Rescue Service maintains its coastal station but the big cost it has at present is the need for a replacement lifeboat. This will cost something in the order of €125,000. As the current boat is more than 15 years old, we can appreciate the urgency.What is important, given the Minister of State's Department is providing the funding in this area for all these community rescue boats in the country - this is the only one on the east coast but there are quite a number along the southern coast and especially up along the west coast - is that when they face some of these major capital costs, there is some funding stream to which they can apply to address a challenge such as the need to purchase a new boat. No other source of funding is available to them in terms of the LEADER programme or the LCDC programmes locally. Cahore, like all other areas in County Wexford, does not qualify for CLÁR funding because it is not an area of population decline. There is no other source of funding other than, respectfully, through the Minister of State's Department.

My question concerns the basic ongoing running costs and what supports can be made available to this group and to the community lifeboats in the form of the existing €5,000 grant but also, specifically, where some of these organisations doing vital work can apply for capital funding. It will not be needed regularly. As we have seen, the boat has been there for more than 15 years. Such funding will only be needed when there is a big cost, like a major repair to a building or a boat. Councillor Pip Breen, who is from the area and is cathaoirleach of Wexford County Council, has also been raising this issue. The Minister of State and I are both extremely familiar with the locality and I hope he might be able to give us some positive news.

James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Senator for raising this important issue. I acknowledge his continued advocacy for north Wexford, in particular, and not just concerning coastal issues, although these are very much at the forefront of this debate, but also for the region, the constituency and the people and communities there. As the Senator did, I also acknowledge Councillor Pip Breen, who has corresponded with me on this matter as well. I know it is something close to his heart as well. As the Senator said, I do know the area well because I grew up nearby. I fished off Cahore Pier as a child and did lifesaving lessons in Courtown and Cahore. Many members of my family have used the facilities there over the years. It is an important and popular location for leisure activities and, more importantly, the kinds of search and rescue operations the Senator spoke about in his contribution, particularly the Cahore Inshore Rescue Service that provides such an important service.

This fits into the wider framework of my Department in that voluntary rescue boats, such as the Cahore Inshore Rescue Service, perform an important role in the maritime search and rescue system, thereby contributing to the safe enjoyment of our natural marine environment. The national search and rescue plan published in 2019 describes the overall national search and rescue ecosystem in Ireland and details how the different services and service providers interact with each other and what mechanisms are there to provide safe services. The Irish Coast Guard, which comes under my remit, is the principal emergency service and division. As the Senator knows, it is located within the Department of Transport. The Coast Guard is the first port of call, with responsibility for maritime search and rescue, maritime casualty and pollution prevention at sea. The Coast Guard delivers this service through its own search and rescue resources such as the four contracted helicopter bases, rescue boat teams, cliff rescue teams and shoreline search and drone teams.

I had the pleasure of visiting Kilmore Quay Coast Guard station earlier in the summer, as well as several other Coast Guard stations, including Rosslare and others gathered that day in south County Wexford. Their bases are down there. The Coast Guard service also has agreements with a certain number of operators like the RNLI. I am very familiar, for example, with the Courtown team. I know Áine Stafford from old and she is to the fore in leading that operation, along with many others there. The RNLI and the 11 voluntary community rescue boat operators, of which Cahore Inshore Rescue Service is one, are very important parts of that wider system too. They have arrangements to work together with the Coast Guard.

These operators are classed and described as declared assets to the Irish Coast Guard when they are provisioned. They declare a level of capacity and can then be directly tasked to respond to incidents. Effectively, they are delegated under Coast Guard control for certain responses and incidents, notwithstanding their commitment and the epic levels of heroism, voluntarism and determination they demonstrate. The Coast Guard recently published guidelines for the operation of such declared rescue boats. These guidelines established, for the first time, a common standard for the operation of rescue boats that may be tasked directly by the Coast Guard for maritime search and rescue such as the type we are talking about.That is a significant and important step to improve safety and co-operation across the maritime search and rescue system and recognise the key role of voluntary community rescue boats. Indeed, they all contributed to those guidelines.

It is also important to note that the statutory body with overall responsibility for voluntary community rescue boat organisations is Water Safety Ireland. Its responsibility extends to operators that may not have a formal agreement with the Coast Guard but that provide such services locally or on an ad hoc basis. As the Senator indicated, the Department administers a maintenance grant to declared voluntary rescue boat operators such as Cahore Inshore Rescue Service. This is usually in the region of €5,000 and is paid in accordance with Department of public expenditure and reform circulars. The grant is intended to support, as the Senator knows, current expenditure by those organisations.

The Senator raised a valid, legitimate and important query about capital spending for a new boat, in this instance, or for storage equipment, facilities and other situations that I am familiar with. The question is valid because the existing system is geared towards maintenance and current funding. However, the Senator and Cahore Inshore Rescue want to know about capital funding. I have engaged with the Department. I am coming to the punchline, if the Acting Chair will bear with me for a moment. The guidelines I mentioned will all boost standards in this area and help the wider system to work more efficiently. I have engaged with the Department on this, as did my predecessor. The Department is carrying out a review of the annual grant to ensure that it is sufficient to meet the level of demand and that these community rescue boats can continue to be supported in the way they need to be.

Malcolm Byrne (Fianna Fail)
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I appreciate the Minister of State’s response. I could also ask about the Courtown Coast Guard unit, but we are specifically talking about the issue with Cahore. I welcome the fact that we have standards for these rescue boats, but in order to be able to meet these standards, we have to ensure the boats are in good condition. There is fundraising for ongoing regular costs, but it is not feasible for a small group like this to be able to fundraise for the purchase of a boat. While I welcome the commitment of a review within the Department, it is a matter of urgency for Cahore that some sort of capital programme is put in place by the Department, not just for this community rescue boat service but also for others, in order that when there is a major capital cost, such a scheme is in place to help meet the standards that are rightly set out by the Coast Guard. These are volunteers who do incredibly important work on behalf of the State. They are involved in saving lives and in ensuring coastal safety. It is critically important that the State responds and provides the necessary moneys they can apply for in order to be able to fund capital purchases.

James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)
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Like the Senator, I praise the volunteers of the Cahore team, the Courtown team and the many other teams. What he had to say is very important and I have taken it on board. I refer here not just to what he has said today but also to the continuous representations he has made to me on this issue since I assumed this role earlier this summer. I very much take those points on board and I take them very seriously. I conveyed that to my Department and I asked that the review be fast-tracked in so far as it can. I absolutely hear the Senator's point about the need for capital expenditure be included within some form of a new scheme. I will take that away and do my best to deliver on it in the time I have left in this role.

Martin Conway (Fine Gael)
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It is not the first time the Senator highlighted this important issue. We will now suspend proceedings.