Save our stations and keep the bailing bucket

THE slash-and-burn policy of the Department of the Marine and the proposal to shut the stations on Valentia and Malin Head show the immaturity of the officials, a touching faith in technology and the innocence of a teenager engaged in sporting activity with a Wii simulator.

The risk of the removal of seasoned weather and sea traffic observers from these two stations is the equivalent of a tyro yachtsman going to sea in a force 8 gale trusting his existence to a one-inch-wide hand-lifting pump — when anyone who has had experience of the south and west coasts ofIreland knows the only real guarantee of survival is a frightened crew with a bailing bucket.

Stop the nonsense and return Malin and Valentia.