FISHING INDUSTRY organisations and Opposition politicians have expressed alarm at a proposed cutback to daytime search and rescue at the Irish Coast Guard’s southeast base.
The Department of Transport said that nothing was imminent and that the change from around the clock to 12-hour daytime only cover proposed at Waterford would come into effect in three years time.
Under a new air/sea rescue contract which the department is negotiating for 2012-13, all four rescue bases at Dublin, Shannon, Sligo and Waterford will be provided with faster and more highly equipped helicopters, possibly Sikorsky S-92s.
The existing €30 million annual contract will be increased to €50 million from 2012 to cover the extra cost, but with a saving in Waterford from 2013.
The increased speed of the new helicopters may allow the Dublin and Shannon bases to cover the west, south and east at night.
Fine Gael Senator Paudie Coffey said the decision to reduce night-time cover at Waterford represented a “disgraceful disregard for the safety of lives. This latest cut means that any casualty, be it a swimmer, fisherman or otherwise, that gets into difficulty after 9pm in the evening off the southeast coast will have to wait an extra 40 minutes at least for the arrival of a sea-rescue helicopter.”
Mr Coffey said that after the loss of four Air Corps crew in the Dauphin helicopter crash of July 1999 at Tramore, Co Waterford, then minister for the marine Michael Woods had said he was “very anxious that an all-weather night-flying helicopter service” be reinstated at Waterford “as soon as possible”.
The southeast base has been run by CHC Helicopters on contract to the Irish Coast Guard since the Air Corps withdrew from search-and-rescue activity.