Rescue services: The Kerry Mountain Rescue Team is facing increasing demands for its services on hills of the county, now more used and trampled on than ever, even as its funding remains static, writes Anne Lucey

The hills in Kerry are alive these days with the sound of boots. Hillwalking (the term is used loosely, but means both climbing and walking in areas over 600 ft) is now so popular in the county's mountains that deep channels have been dug by feet along the traditional climbing routes.

The greater numbers flocking to the hills mean an increased workload for the already busy mountain rescue team.

"Isn't it logical that the more people who are attracted into the mountains, the more accidents you are going to have?" says Mr Christy McCarthy, the second-longest-serving member of the Kerry Mountain Rescue Team, a registered charity.

Tourism bodies are successfully marketing Ireland as a walking destination. The drive attracts mountaineers as much as walkers out for a challenging stroll. Of the 260,000 who came specifically to walk in 2000, most would have tackled a mountain or two in the south-west. Of the niche activities, walking and hiking by far and away draw the biggest numbers.

Golf, for instance, attracted 219,000 in the same year, according to Mr Declan Murphy, tourism officer with Cork Kerry Tourism, who is himself closely involved in trying to raise funds to maintain the Kerry Way walk.

As well, large numbers of weekend trippers from Cork and Limerick make their way on to the Kerry mountains.

The anomalies for the underfunded, unpaid volunteers who operate, often at their own expense, from a shed in the yard of the Killarney Garda station (as with promises of extra Government funding, the Kerry Mountain Rescue Team is awaiting a proper headquarters) are striking: more and more tourist marketing money is being pumped into attracting walkers, yet the resources for the rescue services, like the mountain rescue team and the rescue helicopters on which they depend, remain static.

Kerry has 15 of the 20 highest peaks in the country, including Carrauntoohil, Ireland's highest mountain, the peaks on the MacGillycuddy's Reeks, Mount Brandon and Mangerton, the highest point in the Killarney National Park. As well as the Dingle and Iveragh peninsulas, the hills of the Beara peninsula come under the Kerry Mountain Rescue Team's ambit.

Some 30 volunteers, from all walks of life, including curator, medical engineer ( Eircom technician Mr Tim Long is the longest serving member), administrator, forester and medical scientist make up the Kerry Mountain Rescue Team. So far this year, they have clocked up 20 call-outs, five of these in July alone. Since Christmas they have attended seven fatalities in mountain and water. Their latest call over the August weekend was to a party of walkers stranded in fog on the Old Kenmare road.

The number of call-outs is growing and adds up to around a month a year in time spent on rescue operations for many members.

The team was founded in Easter 1966 after two climbing deaths within days of each other on Carrauntoohil. In the late 1960s and right up to the late 1980s the average number of rescues a year was fewer than five.

The Devil's Ladder is now "the tourist route" up Carrauntoohil. Two recent accidents on the ladder have led to successive weekend call-outs for the team this July.

A warning asking climbers to be cautious on the ladder has been added to the website at www.kerrymountainrescue.ie

Other routes up Carrauntoohil, green grass until 10 years ago, are well-worn pathways. Brother O'Shea's Gully is now beaten down to earth and rock in a zig-zag fashion.

What was a traditional pathway up Mangerton mountain, used by horses at the turn of the last century, is now "a trench", in the words of one team member. The trench has become wider and deeper and a river runs down it during the heavy rainfall in winter.

"There is a delicate balance between enjoyment of the mountains, which we are all into, and destroying the mountains," says Gerry Christie, the team's front man. "There is a balance too between protecting the mountains and preserving them. We are going to have to tackle the question."

All avid mountaineers, most of the team will not use the traditional routes any longer, even for the highest peaks. This is partly because of the state of the route, but also because it is no fun climbing with a hundred others.

"We enjoy pristine wilderness," Mr Christie says, but the dilemmas facing the team and all who love the mountains are not easy, he concedes.

WHAT should climbers do? Should they find another way up until this then becomes worn down? Or should the team suggest paving part of the mountains to make them safer? And who is going to do it in any case?

"If you pave the mountains it is probably going to be volunteers who do the work as in the Isle of Skye when I visited," Mr Christie observes.

"The feeling of wilderness is degraded when you have paving, pathways and signposts. Brandon, for instance, has been destroyed with red and white posts to mark the pathway from Cloghane. Having said, that they are comforting at the dead of night when you are trying to find your way down," Mr Christie says.

Of more immediate concern, though, is the question of funding for the rescue operation. Kerry Mountain Rescue members organise their own fund-raising events. Local charities like the Soroptimists, the Rotarians, the Bank of Ireland staff, the Ring of Kerry Cycle to name but a few, help out considerably, with stretcher-buying, signs and equipment and vehicles. It is also a sad fact that after deaths on the mountain, donations pour in.

About €10,000 or one-fifth of the rescue team's annual needs comes from the Government. The responsibility was transferred from the Department of the Environment to the Department of the Marine this year, but the funding almost fell down an administrative black hole.

It was only spotted when the team's chairman, Mr Paul Curtis, went to the Department of the Environment to argue the case for more).

After the fatalities in the Christmas period, which included the first double fatality, the deaths of John Lucey, the general secretary of PDFORRA, the armed forces representative body and Joan O'Leary (35) a close friend of many on the team, politicians queued with offers of help.

However in three months things went from a situation where the team was expecting an increase in funds to actually feeling lucky "to get what they got last year", Mr Jimmy Laide the treasurer of the team, explained.

The team is now seeking a meeting with local South Kerry TD, the Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism, Mr O' Donoghue.