Nine Fine Gael TDs from the south and south east are seeking an immediate meeting with the Department of Transport over plans to cut back the region’s Coastguard’s helicopter service to a 12 hour daytime service.

Waterford TD John Deasy and his Dáil colleagues from Cork and Wexford will be seeking justification for the cutback from the Department and the Coastguard, amid strong fears that lives will be lost as a consequence of the Department’s decision.

Deputy Deasy said: ‘We believe that when you make a decision like this, which will potentially result in people losing their lives, you had better be able to justify it. Officials from the Department of Transport and the Coastguard who devised this tendering process need to explain how they constructed this tendering process, and why they are pursuing this course of action.”

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The TDs involved are John Deasy TD, Bernard Allen TD, Deirdre Clune TD, Simon Coveney TD, Michael D’Arcy TD, Paul Kehoe TD, Jim O’ Keeffe TD, PJ Sheehan TD, and David Stanton TD

A copy of the letter follows:

Mr Tom O’Mahony
Secretary General
Department of Transport
44 Transport House
Kildare St.,
Dublin 2 March 16, 2010

Dear Mr O’Mahony,

We are writing to request an immediate meeting with you regarding your Department’s proposal to downgrade within the next two years the Coastguard helicopter service based at Waterford Regional Airport, from a 24-hour service to a 12-hour daytime service.

We are concerned that your department has constructed a tendering process that will diminish and reduce vital safety procedures and services for the southeast and southern coast and are interested in ascertaining your rationale for doing so. The practical effect of what you are proposing will, in our opinion, endanger the lives of fishermen and others who may find themselves in emergency situations, particularly at sea. We are assuming that the Department’s reasons for potentially jeopardizing the lives of people who find themselves in emergency situations are absolutely clear and we are interested in better understanding those same reasons. We believe you and your Department officials must clearly justify this course of action which in our opinion may cause the loss of life.

The fact that the southeast helicopter search and rescue service had its busiest year ever last year with 115 callouts also concerns us and we are interested to learn the callout figures for every other search and rescue service around the country. The relevant figures for every search and rescue base for the past 10 years would be helpful for us to determine how your department came to devise its tendering process and pursue its existing proposal.

Your department has indicated that the downgrading of the 24-hour search and rescue service based in the southeast could realize savings of almost €1 million. We would appreciate if you could outline and itemize how that saving will be achieved and whether your department attempted to find those savings elsewhere within the overall Coastguard budget. We are also interested in how your department intends allocating the entire budget of €50 million per annum for Coastguard services around the country.

We are interested in discussing all the vital statistics and evidence you used to make this decision. For example, we would like to see figures related to ship and boat movements in the south and southeast regions relative to all other parts of the country.

As you will be aware the southeast helicopter search and rescue service is based in a region where there are three major shipping ports, Waterford, Cork and Rosslare, with new ferry services from Cork and substantial existing ferry services from Rosslare. We understand that one of the reasons given for maintaining the Dublin search and rescue service as a 24-hour service is the level of commercial shipping traffic at Dublin Port. Perhaps your department could explain why this doesn’t seem to be a factor in the case of the service based in the southeast? This is a particular source of interest to us as there have reports that the callout rate for the Dublin search and rescue service is less than that of the search and rescue service based in Waterford.

These are just some of the questions we would like to ask when we meet with you. We would also appreciate the attendance of senior representatives of the Irish Coastguard Service at the meeting. Thank you for your assistance with this matter and we look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

John Deasy TD
Bernard Allen TD
Deirdre Clune TD
Simon Coveney TD
Michael D’Arcy TD
Paul Kehoe TD
Jim O’ Keeffe TD
PJ Sheehan TD
David Stanton TD