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Press release

Senator Mark Daly brands information on the future of the Irish Coastguards as “incompetent at best and deceptive at worst”.

(21st February 12pm) “Incompetent at best and deceptive at worst” is how Senator Mark Daly described the information supplied by senior management of the Irish Coast Guards to the Department of Transport regarding the future of Valentia. Senator Daly has now publicised that a number of statements from the report that were written as fact have since been proven to be false.

Electricity Connection
A statement that the Valentia station “suffers from a greater number of blackouts…. Than normally experienced in urban areas” has been refuted by no less than the former Chairman on the ESB, Tadhg O’Donoghue.

Telecommunications

A statement in the report in relation to inadequacy of the telecommunications service was also rebutted by Eircom engineers in the area.

Staff

The information supplied to the report is also misleading on other issues. It states that “at present about half the staff do not live in Co. Kerry”. In fact, of the 15 staff, 11 live in the county.

Loss of skills

In the 2007, of the 258 urgency distress (May Day) calls broadcasted Valentia handled 165 of them, Dublin and Malin responded to 93 between them.

Valentia is also the only Coast Guard Station in Ireland, England, Scotland, Wales and France with staff proficient in Spanish and it is frequently relied upon by the British Coastguard Service to handle all distress calls from Spanish fishing vessels.

Previous rationalisation by the United Kingdom and Spanish Coastguard Services on the closure and centralisation of marine services have resulted in reversal of decisions and have been subject to parliamentary review. The Irish Coastguard covers 2,508km of coastline. In the UK there is a station for every 937km of coastline. With the proposed closing of Valentia and the reduction of the number of stations from three to two, each station will be responsible for 3,762km, over four times the UK level.

Senator Daly spoke on the issues in the Seanad today with cross party concern from Senator Paul Coghlan (FG) supporting his call for a debate. A debate has been scheduled for next Wednesday from 3pm to 5pm in which Senator Daly plans to highlight the incompetent and contradictory nature of the report.

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