Irish Coast Guard / Naval Service Merging thread

[knocker]

Goldie
How popular (or unpopular as the case might be!) is the argument for a coast guard service ? it could encompass the existing coast guard, the naval service, the air corps casa, and have elements of the garda and customs service attached to it? could it ever work with all those elements coming under one central command ? Has it been put forward as an option for the next white paper ?

[knocker]

Apologies to all if this question is in the wrong thread or if its been asked before

[Goldie fish]

Oh, that's a can of worms.....
It makes perfect sense to have all maritime state assets under one umbrella. However, the fear is that given the lack of interest and investment the state has shown to the maritime sector, within a short time it would cease to be.
However one wise man once asked me, "how many navies does a small island need?"
Count em.
Irish Naval Service(8 vessels)
Revenue(customs) Maritime unit.(1vessel + 1 building)
Garda(1 Vessel)
Fisheries Board?
Commissioners of Irish Lights(1 Vessel)
Maritime Institute(2 Vessels)
Coastguard?

Surely it would be better to paint them all grey? It particularly confuses me as to why the Gardai and Customs have their own vessels, under independant control, doing tasks that with slight changes in legislation, the Naval service would be better equipped to carry out.

The other fear is that by replacing the Naval service with a Coastguard type service, you lose much of the military capability.
It was considered in the past though. There was a popular rumour in haulbowline around 1997 that all stocks of grey paint in stores had been replaced by red and white paint...

[ZULU]

Fisheries Board?

Coastguard?
...

Fisheries have 2 as I understand it. Both made in AQUA-STAR/Carra Marine.

"Breadan Batha" and "Cosantoir Bradan"






Coast Guard have a 8.5m Delta rib with twin 150hp E-tecs in Cork, not to mention they have a heli

[Goldie fish]

Coastguard also have a very large fleet of vehicles that look unnecessarily like Garda Vehicles.

[ZULU]

Personal hate of mine that one

[Goldie fish]

I fail to see their need for new Jeeps with sirens, strobes and yellow stripes, when most of the time they'll be parked outside the coast guard officers house.

[easyrider]

Fisheries have 2 as I understand it. Both made in AQUA-STAR/Carra Marine.

"Breadan Batha" and "Cosantoir Bradan"






Coast Guard have a 8.5m Delta rib with twin 150hp E-tecs in Cork, not to mention they have a heli

Those two boats spend most of the year on the hard at Malahide Marina - what a waste of maritime assets, and taxpayers' money!

[Thorpe]

You have no idea how confusing it is photographing GC equipment for the website (GC page is under construction at moment and will appear shortly), recently one of the lads who send us photographs was at an incident, he thiugh he was photographing CG vehicles instead it was mostly Garda vehicles he took, he was really p***ed when we told him, he still sned photos to us though

[knocker]

Oh i almost forgot - how about taking some of the civil defence rib work away from them and giving the naval service reserve a realistic role? . Goldie i had no idea there was so much mini empire building back home ( the different services having their own craft) If the government wants to make some savings, they could do alot worse than bringing all the assets under one command.

[DeV]

The Coast Guard is an emergency service the bulk of whom are volunteers and therefore require emergency service vehicles (but yes they do look very like Garda vehicles).

[apc]

Knocker said

how about taking some of the civil defence rib work away from them and giving the naval service reserve a realistic role?

Some chance when they are taking Line rescue and Water rescue equipment over from retained fire brigades and I believe they have taken over a retainedfire staion in Mayo.

BE WARY OF THE CIVIL DEFENCE

[Goldie fish]

The Coast Guard is an emergency service the bulk of whom are volunteers and therefore require emergency service vehicles (but yes they do look very like Garda vehicles).

Why don't retained firefighters or lifeboat crew have their own emergency vehicles to park outside their houses?

[ZULU]

some do, well, thr mafia in my part of the world do. Benefit in kind anyone?

[apc]

Goldie fish said

Why don't retained firefighters or lifeboat crew have their own emergency vehicles to park outside their houses?

Because then they would be paid from the time their alerters went off and not from time of attendence in the station. Local Authorities are too tight fisted

Question:- Are Coastgaurd volunteers who operate cliff rescue, water rescues entitled to use Blues and Twos when responding:confused: