Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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44. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport the annual budget his Department allocated to organisations that save lives, for example, the Irish Coast Guard and the Naval Service and search and rescue services in each of the past five years; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [36672/21]

Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael)
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The main functions of the Irish Coast Guard are to provide a marine radio distress listening service and broadcast marine safety information, co-ordinate search and rescue in the Irish Search and Rescue region, intervene as necessary in marine casualties to prevent or minimise damage to the coastline and related interests, respond to vessels requesting a place of refuge, implement the Oil Preparedness, Response and Co-operation Convention regime in Ireland and provide a Maritime Assistance Service.

To carry out these functions, Coast Guard operates a Marine Rescue Coordination Centre at Dublin, Marine Rescue Sub Centres at Valentia and Malin for SAR coordination and maritime casualty response. Coast Guard has a contract with Canadian Helicopter Corporation to provide a SAR Helicopter service from 4 bases. Coast Guard also manages 44 Coast Guard Units comprising of almost 940 volunteers whose function is to carry out coastal search and in some locations cliff rescue and rescue boat service.

The overall allocations to the Irish Coast Guard over the last five years are as below.