Don't sink by night off the South Coast

[spidermom]

Yep..it appears that common sense has prevailed and thank god for it!!!!

[Dohville]

And the dept of transport are now saying "shur we never intended to downgrade it anyway".
If anything, this episode goes to show that people power still works. The problem is for the most part, the public are apathatetic towards the daily actions, inactions or foul ups of this government. We are going from one disaster to the next. Who knows what drama next month will bring, and how much it will end up costing us...

[MsAnneThrope]

And the dept of transport are now saying "shur we never intended to downgrade it anyway".

I heard Dempsey say that explicitly on RTÉ radio yesterday (I think it was on Drivetime with Mary Wilson). Astonishing.

[Austen]

How the hell is it jumping from €27m a year to €50m a year, yet part of the service is being downgraded? That is some rise. What the hell are we paying for?

Remember, one of the reasons SAR was privatised in the first place was because of the botch job made by FF of new helicopters for the Air Corps after a typical cute hoor election stunt in 2002 went pearshaped amid threats of a court challenge.

The Air Corps are still waiting for their medium-lift helicopters but now we appear to be forking out for a private foreign company to enable that same company to provide our SAR service.

I met someone from RNLI a few weeks ago and they were saying the private contract is way overpriced and there are enough helicopters in the country to provide the service, but FF messed up and a bit of a backhander was suggested....but I can't believe that for a moment.