Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin Bay North, Labour)
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315. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport if his attention has been drawn to contradictory information as to whether training was provided to volunteer cliff rescue units prior to their return to active duty; if a series of operational assessments with no training component were conducted; if he will ask the Irish Coastguard Service to detail the replacement equipment that was made available to which cliff rescue units and when the equipment was provided in order to facilitate their return to cliff rescue operation; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [50462/21]

Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael)
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The volunteers at the 17 cliff rescue units within the Irish Coast Guard train regularly in the TAG 07 system and this training is verified within the Training & Certification section of the unit's annual Operational Readiness Audit (ORA). The Coast Guard Units & Support section of the Irish Coast Guard, who manage the volunteer units, introduced various control measures around training during the Covid-19 pandemic to ensure the units remain on the board for operational taskings. Their return to active duty commenced for each of the 17 cliff units on completion of their external ORAs. In summary the units were permitted to train prior to the ORAs and their return to active duty.

ORAs are an inspection of a cliff rescue unit which covers equipment, record keeping, maintenance, logbooks, certification and practical exercises – primarily in stretcher recovery and walking casualty recovery. As the ORA is an assessment of a cliff unit there is no training component specifically included in that process.

Other than routine replacement of equipment as per our procedures on cliff rescue equipment during normal operations, no specific additional replacement equipment was provided to cliff rescue units to facilitate their return to active duty.

Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin Bay North, Labour)
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316. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport the timeline and stage process of the end-of-life decision and actions taken for the Rescue 400 life jackets for the Irish Coastguard Service; the reason there was a requirement to stand down all Irish Coastguard Service boat operations while waiting for the procurement process for a replacement to be found; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [50463/21]

Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael)
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The Coast Guard withdrew the services of its in-shore rescue boats stationed at 23 locations around the coast on Friday 15th of November 2019 due to safety concerns identified with the Rescue 400 lifejacket. This action was taken following a reported malfunction of a number of these lifejackets which are a key piece of personal protective equipment.  A procurement process was commenced immediately and the volunteer Coast Guard units returned to full operational status on a phased basis which commenced December 12^th2019.

This action was taken in compliance with Coast Guards SAR assurance obligations as set out in the National SAR Plan to ensure safety of Coast Guard boat crews.

As per standard arrangements other SAR providers i.e. RNLI, CRBI (Community Rescue Boats Ireland) & helicopters were advised of the actions taken by the Coast Guard to ensure provision of SAR services.