Dempsey’s life-or-death decision on coast station

I AM distressed at the thought of Transport Minister Noel Dempsey contemplating the closure of Valentia coastguard station.

I have been Valentia lifeboat coxwain since 1982. Before that I worked all around the coast of Ireland on fishing boats and also spent five years in England fishing the North Sea where I qualified as a skipper.

I have been at sea since I was 17 and I am now 54. Therefore I have some knowledge of the sea and what goes on out there.

The thought of closing the station makes me feel very uncomfortable.

I wonder has Minister Dempsey thought this through or has he just listened to his civil servants/consultants and accepted what they have told him or put in their reports?

These submissions, in fact, have been proven already to be inaccurate.

Does the minister realise the vast experience of the staff of Valentia coastguard station? Their ability to communicate with the Spanish fleet that fishes off the west coast is well documented. This they do in highly charged situations when a wrong command or a language difficulty could make the difference between life and death. On one particular night when we were launched to escort a Spanish vessel into the harbour to do a medical evacuation (conditions outside the harbour were not suitable), Timothy Lyne of the coastguard was relaying our directions to the skipper of the Spanish trawler in Spanish asking him to follow us in.

At the harbour entrance the trawler suddenly headed for the lighthouse and was close to grounding. We had to contact the coastguard and Mr Lyne immediately relayed in Spanish for the trawler to go astern. This they did and averted a disaster.

Another major concern if the minister closes the Valentia station would be the loss of the knowledge base — the people you know and can trust in an emergency. That is knowing which response unit to call to a particular area and knowing the area itself.

At a recent meeting between the local group SOS (‘Save our Station’) and members of the coastguard, group members were told new staff would be trained and they would be competent in these matters in “10 to 15 years”.

What about the potential loss of life in the meantime while this knowledge is being acquired? Does the minister really want to lose all of this and put lives at risk? Sometime in the future, when the minister and his consultants/civil servants are tucked nicely into bed and we are responding to a distress call in the dead of night, facing into galeforce north-west winds (we don’t mind — it’s what we do), it would be reassuring to know it was the well-trained staff of Valentia coastguard station we were dealing with and not people who have not yet reached their full potential because they have not inherited the tradition from those who went before them.

As this is a Government matter, the RNLI as an organisation has not gotten involved in the debate and was asked by the coastguard not to allow any of its staff members to comment on the closures on its behalf.

So this is a personal statement from me. Before the minister makes his final decision I wish to ask him if he wants to destroy a tradition and a service that means so much to coastal communities ever since it was established?

Seánie Murphy

Coxswain

Valentia Lifeboat

Valentia Island

Co Kerry