Minister Dempsey defends Coast Guard decision

RobitTV

Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey has defended the Government's decision regarding the cover to be provided by the Coast Guard helicopter based at Waterford airport.

The Government is about to sign a new 10-year contract with a private company to provide helicopter Search and Rescue facilities at four bases around the country.


Speaking in Kilkenny, the minister confirmed the contract is worth €500m over the next ten years, with the annual spending on the service going up from €27m currently to €50m annually.


The search and rescue helicopter cover from the Waterford base is due to be reduced from 24 to 12-hour cover from 2013.

However, Minister Noel Dempsey said this is not a cut, that more money is being spent in total on the overall service and that there will still be 24-hour coverage for all the coastline.

He said the new contract involves the purchase of new helicopters, which he said will be better, will be 50% faster than the current ones and 'will be able to fly at night and in clouds unlike the current situation'.


A number of people from coastal communities in the southeast travelled to Kilkenny to protest at the decision. (SAVE THE 24 HOUR SERVICE!!! :mad:)

Dum_Dum

So: less coverage = more coverage. See what a stupid populace we have been. Our masters are clearly more intelligent than we can ever hope to be.

JohnC.

Funny how halving the operating time is "not a cut"

mike65

Newspeak

ziedth

Ok,

Does anyone have a statistic for the effectiveness of the helicopter at night?even how many people they have saved or how many times it's been used outside the hours that will be in use from 2013?

I'm not suggesting for one second that they are right to do this I'm just curious.

Bodan

If they are going to spend 500 million (50 million a year), surely they can find the extra 1 million to pay for the 24 hr service.

Trotter

http://www.rte.ie/news/2010/0322/coastguard.html

He said the new contract involves the purchase of new helicopters, which he said will be better, will be 50% faster than the current ones and 'will be able to fly at night and in clouds unlike the current situation'.

They will not be 50% faster. Thats blatantly untrue.

will be able to fly at night and in clouds unlike the current situation

Ahem.. Ask some of the people they rescued late at night.. they'll tell you it was a bit cloudy..


He's scraping the barrell now, he really is.

CantGetNoSleep

Prick!

Silverado

RobitTV wrote: »

He said the new contract involves the purchase of new helicopters, which he said will be better, will be 50% faster than the current ones and 'will be able to fly at night and in clouds unlike the current situation'. )

What sort of an idiot is our "Transport" Minister Dempsey to make this remark at the recent opening ceremony of the M9. Does he not realise the the Sikorski S-61 is a highly advanced machine used widely all over the world for SAR and Oil Rig support.

Cllr. Mary Greene had it right in this week's Munster Express when she said that he must have got his information from some "suit" in the Department who was equally ignorant. Thank God they at least have the service contracted out and are not running it themselves. They would be using horse and carts or dugout canoes for rescue.

What is very worrying is that they in the Department are believing that the present Sikorski is slow and unable to fly in all conditions. This helicopter has a maximum speed of 166mph and the fastest speed ever achieved by a helicopter anywhere is 249mph. Now my calculation is that if you increase the 166 by 50% you get 249 oddly enough.

So this means that this new helicopter will always be travelling at the fastest speed ever achieved by a helicopter??

I think Minister that you have it badly wrong and that you better go back and re-examine your figures.

Terry Cotta

Why is this being contracted out to a private company?

Since its an emergency service, is it not be like contracting out the fire service/ambulance etc?

JohnC.

Perhaps he'd just been watching Airwolf and got confused.

Bards

and it never entered our esteemed media's head to question why we purchased slow helicopters, that couldnt fly in cloudy conditions. - Afterall this is Ireland, where there are clouds:rolleyes:

dayshah

Terry Cotta wrote: »

Why is this being contracted out to a private company?

Since its an emergency service, is it not be like contracting out the fire service/ambulance etc?

It was the air corps job, but they have more serious work to do. Such as flying Mary Harney to Florida to get her nails done (I'm probably mixing up different stories).

I think a lot could be said for giving it back to the air corps.

However I think the decision was down to costs. Its a lot more expensive to train someone to Air Corps standard as they need to know what to do if shot down over Chad or somewhere.

The current operators do a great job in dangerous situations, but don't really need to know who to use a rifle or dig a trench and so on.

gscully

dayshah wrote: »

It was the air corps job, but they have more serious work to do. Such as flying Mary Harney to Florida to get her nails done

Given the size of that b*tch, would it not be cheaper to fly Florida here?

dayshah

gscully wrote: »

Given the size of that b*tch, would it not be cheaper to fly Florida here?

It would boost tourism too

Junior

I'm f*ckin raging over that smart arsed mealy mouth c*nts comments I've sent an email to a few TD's over it this evening, using some comments from here..


In relation to the cuts to the SAR Helicopter service in Waterford, I’m disgusted that Minister Noel Dempsey has put a price of a mere 1 Million on saving lives in the South East, and the blatant lies the man is now coming out with to cover his arse is beyond a joke. Can someone please pull the minister to book on his comments that he made at the opening of the M9 Motorway, they are beyond stupidity.

His comments are available here http://www.rte.ie/news/2010/0322/coastguard.html

The areas I have serious issues with his truthfulness are the following

He said the new contract involves the purchase of new helicopters, which he said will be better, will be 50% faster than the current ones and 'will be able to fly at night and in clouds unlike the current situation'.

Does he not realise the the Sikorski S-61 is a highly advanced machine used widely all over the world for SAR and Oil Rig support. This helicopter has a maximum speed of 166mph and the fastest speed ever achieved by a helicopter anywhere is 249mph. Now my calculation is that if you increase the 166 by 50% you get 249mph.

I also take issue with his statement that the current ones don’t fly in darkness or in clouds, he should consult any one of the current bases as we have seen many operations flown in darkness and in cloud conditions, it also begs the questions why still after the tragedy in Tramore are the Government allowing substandard equipment to be used by our SAR Teams.

Mr Dempsey also stretches the truth with these comments also

this is not a cut, that more money is being spent in total on the overall service and that there will still be 24-hour coverage for all the coastline

If there was one base in Killibegs that was 24 hour it would be a 24 hour service for all the country, at minimum Mr Dempsey has put a 45 minute journey time to the south east coast onto the existing service, would he like to wait 45 minutes before an ambulance reached the borders of Dublin ? I think not !

Best Regards

Bodan

The contract is going from 27 million a year to 50million a year over 10 years, according to press reports, so that they can get some new helicopters.

Mr Dempsey said: “What we’re doing is improving the service. The amount of money being talked about is €1 million of a saving. We’re actually increasing the amount of money on that service from approximately €27 million to €50 million. We’re buying better helicopters; we’re going to provide better coverage.”

The new models are supposed to be the Sikorsky S-92. According to its wiki page the Unit cost of this model is US$15.3 million. So my question is, where is all the money going ? Even if you doubled the price, there is still plenty of change left over.

Dum_Dum

Bodan wrote: »

So my question is, where is all the money going ?

On the Ministers plastic surgery after his visit to Waterford.

Beeker

RobitTV wrote: »

He said the new contract involves the purchase of new helicopters, which he said will be better, will be 50% faster than the current ones and 'will be able to fly at night and in clouds unlike the current situation'.

What a stupid stupid man! If you dont know the facts minister keep your mouth shut!

Current helicopters are well capable of flying at night and in cloud.

Silverado

It certainly appears that the Minister is trying to create a smokescreen over the Waterford SAR facility. The mention of the new and improved S-92 machine which would be put into use to solve all the issues does little to assuage our lack of night time cover in the South East. This helicopter is approximately just 15% faster that the present S-61, is a little larger and newer but the end result is that we lose.

Travelling from Dublin to Waterford this machine will take 40 minutes - how long does it take to drown.

deisedol

Just wondering ....Will we have to tell all participants and tourists to our city during the Tall Ships that they are not covered by the coastguard if they fall overboard after 5pm ?
We are hosting a world tourist event here in our city and the likes of Dempsey have a cheek taking away our coastguard services. It is an absolute outrage and an insult to the people of the south east. Our lives are not valued in the same way as people living in other parts of the country. We are a gateway city in one of the main regions of the Island of Ireland. The South East are discriminated against again in terms of our lifes....as we have educational apartheid with the lack of a university in the south east region....Perhaps we should govern ourselves...the republic of the south east....cos we are being treated as outcasts in every other respect by the powerhouse in Dublin....Revolution time will occur soon if the SOuth East is not treated with a bit of respect. The coastguard decision has to be reversed.......or else......

mike65

They just had a report on RTE Drivetime about this Damien Tiernan the SE corespondent
dismantled what Dempsey said regarding speed and conditions (I was wondering had he read this thread), The audio will be on the http://www.rte.ie/radio1/drivetime/ page later fast forward to 1 hr and 45 min or so

Trotter

Damien did a fantastic job!

RTÉ Drivetime - Damien Tiernan

Go to 2hrs 11mins 5 seconds..