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JOINT COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORT – 2^nd of July 2008

Marine Rescue Centres: Discussion

Senator Mark Daly:  In his report Mr. Fearon said that critical to the operation of any control centre is the provision of a stable and consistent supply of electrical power. Despite improvements by the ESB, both Malin and Valentia, because of their remote location, suffered from a greater number of black-outs and supply voltage drops - brown-outs - than normally experienced in urban areas. Is that correct?

Mr. John Fearon:  Yes, that is correct.

Senator Mark Daly:    I refer to an ESB letter, dated 22 February, and a subsequent UPS report on 6 March which says: “During the time in which we had a voltage recorder installed in your premises, your voltage was within standards.” Does Mr. Fearon accept that the ESB in Valentia is up to standard? That is “Yes” or “No”.

Mr. John Fearon:  With respect to the Senator, it is not quite that straightforward.

Senator Mark Daly:    It is either up to standard, or it is not.

Mr. John Fearon:  Our consistent finding in relation to-----

Senator Mark Daly:    No, the ESB has given Mr. Fearon a report. The board is the supplier of electricity and he asked it to put a UPS report in the station. It said it is up to standard. Does Mr. Fearon accept the ESB’s statement that Valentia is up to standard?

Mr. John Fearon:  The ESB statement found that in a week in which it had a device in place, no difficulty was encountered. Having-----

Senator Mark Daly:    Am I correct in saying that-------

Vice Chairman:    Senator Daly should allow Mr. Fearon to answer the question and I shall let him back in.

Mr. John Fearon:  -----similar, if not identical equipment in place over a sustained period of time, we have consistently found that there have been outages at our UPS systems. They are consistently higher at both Malin and Valentia than in Dublin. These are identical UPS pieces of equipment in each location and that is simply the fact as regards what we find.

Senator Mark Daly:    May I please clarify something?

Vice Chairman:    The Senator may.

Senator Mark Daly:    Mr. Fearon asked the ESB to give a report as regards the UPS and it said that it was up to standard. Before he had put this to paper and said the electricity supply was not up to standard, did he get the ESB to monitor the system?

Mr. John Fearon:  We did our own monitoring.

Senator Mark Daly:    Mr Fearon did not get the ESB to do it.

Mr. John Fearon:  We did not. We did monitored the system. In a week in which the ESB monitored the system it did not find anything, but there are weeks in which we do not have difficulties either. The ESB did not have a difficulty that week, but we have had difficulties. Even since the report was written that position continues.

Senator Mark Daly:    Can Mr Fearon supply within two days the UPS reports he had to hand when he wrote this report?

Mr. John Fearon:  I can, yes.

Senator Mark Daly:    Will he please give that to the Chairman? To continue, Mr. Fearon said that these were significantly less than quoted. The ESB has literally said that what he put in the report was not correct - and it is the supplier to his station.

Mr. John Fearon:  It is.

Senator Mark Daly:    Mr. Fearon does not accept the ESB’s findings.

Mr. John Fearon:  I have findings which are different.

Senator Mark Daly:    From the ESB.

Mr. John Fearon:  To be fair, the ESB is commenting from the perspective of having a piece of equipment in place for a week. We have had similar equipment in place since the UPS units were put in, and we have consistently found difficulties. We have to address that.

Senator Mark Daly:    The ESB is not referring to upages and downages, but saying they are within standards and actually compare favourably to Dublin.

Mr. John Fearon:  Unfortunately, the facts do not bear that out. Reference was made in the Seanad as well, I know, to an ESB letter, in which it was stated that if storm damage was discounted, the supplies were up to standard. Unfortunately for us, discounting storm damage is not an option. I know it is extreme, but the position I am looking at is not the type of situation one meets in an ordinary business environment. I am looking for equipment that will perform in the most adverse weather conditions around the country.

Senator Mark Daly:    I accept that, but the Coast Guard equipment is not similar to the ESB’s in terms of recording brownages and jumps in the system. One can only rely on the standard of the national supplier which is the only one available. Would it not be correct to say that there have been outages in Dublin as well?

Mr. John Fearon:  Absolutely, but not at the same level. That is the only point I am making.

Senator Mark Daly:    In Mr. Fearon’s report as regards parallel staffing, he says the establishment of new centres would give rise to disruption and overlapping staffing needs in a transition period. The Secretary General of the Department, Mr. Maurice Mullen, said on 27 November 2007 that there would be no parallel staffing for new centres. Is that not a contradiction? How can it be said today that will be a staff overlap, when he said that there would be no such overlap? How can we have both?

Mr. John Fearon:  Clearly one cannot.

Senator Mark Daly:    Fine. That is all right.

Vice Chairman:    Mr. Fearon has to be allowed answer fully.

Mr. John Fearon:  In our situation parameters are changing all the time. I pointed this out in a paper looking for orientation decisions. In other words, I was trying to get an indication from the Minister on what way to proceed. I pointed out the difficulties associated with the different options I proposed. Given that decentralisation moves must be voluntary, I could not see that moving something involving sensitive processes, such as the emergency marina radio centres, could be done without an overlap in staff.

Senator Mark Daly:    Therefore, what is being proposed is something that is not actually possible.

Mr. John Fearon:  No. We outline the difficulties and we manage our way around it. I indicated in the note at the time that what I proposed required negotiation and development.

Senator Mark Daly:    Was Mr. Fearon aware that Mr. Mullen had said that?

Mr. John Fearon:  He had not said it at the stage that I did. I wrote the report and things subsequently became clear. The economic position is changing, as is the amount of funding available. It is becoming increasingly clear that the hope we had for additional staff to get us over that period is more remote at this stage. It is probably impossible. We spent the past 18 months negotiating with people, and Mr. Mullen played an important part in negotiating with the Department of Finance to get additional staffing for maritime safety services. We have achieved that in the past 18 months, which has been a big help. In managing a transition from our existing location in Dublin to somewhere else, or if it was to happen in the other stations, the option of having additional staff to do just that is pretty remote.

Senator Mark Daly:    How can it actually work? If we are not allowed overlapping staff, and there cannot be parallel recruiting, are we not in a logjam?

Mr. John Fearon:  My job is to find a way around these difficulties. If that was the position presented to me, I would have to find some kind of solution.

Senator Mark Daly:    Will lives be put at risk if there are gaps in the staffing system?

Mr. John Fearon:  No. I have tried to make it clear that the motivation behind what I am suggesting is to provide a better maritime safety service. The one principle before us is to figure out what provides the best maritime safety service for this country for the long term. We would not take action which would put lives at risk.

Senator Mark Daly:    On a point of order, he is raising an issue there-----

Vice Chairman:    I will give the Senator an opportunity to revert to this issue but all his colleagues are entitled to contribute.

Senator Mark Daly:    There is an inaccuracy.

Vice Chairman:    I will give the Senator adequate time at the conclusion.

Senator Mark Daly:    This is inaccurate. In the report given to the Minister, it is stated that more than half the staff live outside counties Kerry and Donegal. Senator Keaveney has pointed out and Senator Coghlan will point out that far more than 50% of the staff live within those counties. Why did Mr. Fearon include this point in the report? Was research carried out? Who provided him with the information he included in the report stating that more than half the staff live outside those counties?

Vice Chairman:    Is that correct? Where do a majority of the staff live

Senator Mark Daly:    This pertains to the accuracy of the report given to the Minister. It was stated in black and white by Mr. Fearon in this report that in respect of staff, more than half live outside. It stated that “at present, about half the staff do not live in either home MRSC county”.

Vice Chairman:    Mr. Fearon should clarify this matter for members.

Mr. John Fearon:  At the time, the reference was to approximately half of the staff living outside the county.

Senator Mark Daly:    More than half.

Mr. John Fearon:  It stated “about half of staff”.

Senator Mark Daly:    The report stated that “at present, about half the staff do not live in either ... county”.

Mr. John Fearon:  Okay.

Senator Mark Daly:    Who gave Mr. Fearon the information that-----

Mr. John Fearon:  I took that information from our records at the time. There have been changes since.

Senator Mark Daly:    No, the figures members are providing are from that day.

Mr. John Fearon:  My figures are different.

Vice Chairman:    Perhaps Mr. Fearon was misinformed.

Mr. John Fearon:  While that is possible, the point was made to me subsequently that looking at the issue on a county perspective, for the reasons suggested by Senator Keaveney, was unreasonable. For the reasons outlined, I recognised this and therefore conducted the exercise again by considering distances from the centre. Even at that, my figures still differ from those in Senator Keaveney’s possession.

Senator Mark Daly:    I seek clarification. At the time Mr. Fearon wrote the report, was what he put down true?

Mr. John Fearon:  I believe it to be true.

Senator Mark Daly:    Does Mr. Fearon have the paperwork supplied to him that allowed him to include such figures on a paper that was given to a Minister? From where did he get this information?

Mr. John Fearon:  I got it from personnel records.

Senator Mark Daly:    Would he be able to supply, within two days, the personnel records presented to him on which basis he included such information? The first question thrown at me was the reason I cared about the issue because most of the people involved did not even live in County Kerry. This question arises from the aforementioned sentence. However, it was not true for either County Donegal or County Kerry. Mr. Fearon supplied that figure to a Minister. Will he supply, within two days, the personnel records on which he based that statement?

Mr. John Fearon:  I will get records and will supply them to the joint committee.

Senator Mark Daly:    Is the Department moving new equipment into Malin and Valentia?

Mr. John Fearon:  We are linking Malin and Valentia into the ICS equipment.

Senator Mark Daly:    Will new equipment be installed?

Mr. John Fearon:  We will put in some new equipment.

Senator Mark Daly:    On a point of information, Mr. Fearon is raising his concerns about the ESB and the UPS system. In that context, I wish to quote from a letter from the ESB, dated 22 February 2008, in response to the Department, which states that, “the UPS at Valentia, County Kerry is being brought to our attention now for the first time”.

If the Department were so concerned about the electricity supply to Valentia, surely it would have contacted the ESB before the various Deputies and Senators from the affected areas raised a furore. Mr. Fearon said the ESB was not up to standard but the Department did not bother to contact the ESB until February this year.

I also wish to remind Mr. Fearon that he has promised to supply us with the UPS and engineer’s reports within two days.

Vice Chairman:    This was one of the best attended meetings of the Joint Committee on Transport in the past six months and, without exception, members spoke very sensibly. They come from the areas that count most, as far as they are concerned. An enormous number of issues were raised today on which further clarification is needed, including technical issues concerning the ESB and where people will work. This process should be re-examined and from this committee’s point of view, nothing less than a meeting with the Minister will suffice. Serious differences of opinion were expressed here today as to the level of accuracy in the report. I do not say it was inaccurate from Mr. Fearon’s point of view because he has done a professional job, for which we thank him. However, many questions were raised which should be put directly to the Minister. This committee is the right forum in which to seek answers. We have long discussed national spatial strategies but, coming from the west, I have noted the good reasons that are regularly given for not leaving infrastructure in place. In other words, compelling reasons are given for removing something that works from its context and centralising it. I thank Mr. Fearon and Mr. Reynolds for being so up-front with their answers but the committee will have to further investigate this matter.