Search and Rescue professionals are the first to assert the need for intervention at the earliest possible moment - lives can be saved or lost in an instant - if the frontline experts are unanimous in this view, who is a politician, or an economist, to question this - another type of Search and Rescue expert? I think not.
I would like to propose a not impossible scenario - the visit of a Head of State to the South East - for instance, Barack Obama visiting the Kennedy Homestead in New Ross.
While dining, at 9.15 p.m., a storm rages outside. It is the night the fleet of Fastnet Race competitors are being driven in a force 8 south westerly gale eastwards from the Hook. The gale backs to southerly and pandemonium ensues - capsized yachts - Mayday calls - distress flares.........lifeboats launch from Kilmore Quay, Dunmore East, Rosslare........but no RAF Air-Sea Rescue helicopters from Brawdy or South West England, no South East Search and Rescue helicopter - but there IS help on the way, from the West - after a twenty minute scramble, thirty minute flight and twenty minute refuel at Waterford Airport - but, by the time the chopper reaches Ballyteigue Bay...........so many are already lost...
...and at breakfast the next morning Barack Obama asks if it is true that for the sake of one million euro, the Irish Government directed that there should be no SAR cover that night in the area known for hundreds of years as the 'Graveyard of a Thousand Ships'?
...'Yes' responds the Taioseach, 'that is the case'
...'and that was on the advice of the experts in the field of search and rescue?'
...'No, it was against their advice'
...'is reckless endangerment a criminal offence in Ireland?' asks President Obama as he leaves.
Áine Brady
Michael Fitzalan Way
Posted on 25 Mar 2010 12:04 am (This comment has been reported to moderators)
Search and Rescue professionals are the first to assert the need for intervention at the earliest possible moment - lives can be saved or lost in an instant - if the frontline experts are unanimous in this view, who is a politician, or an economist, to question this - another type of Search and Rescue expert? I think not.
I would like to propose a not impossible scenario - the visit of a Head of State to the South East - for instance, Barack Obama visiting the Kennedy Homestead in New Ross.
While dining, at 9.15 p.m., a storm rages outside. It is the night the fleet of Fastnet Race competitors are being driven in a force 8 south westerly gale eastwards from the Hook. The gale backs to southerly and pandemonium ensues - capsized yachts - Mayday calls - distress flares.........lifeboats launch from Kilmore Quay, Dunmore East, Rosslare........but no RAF Air-Sea Rescue helicopters from Brawdy or South West England, no South East Search and Rescue helicopter - but there IS help on the way, from the West - after a twenty minute scramble, thirty minute flight and twenty minute refuel at Waterford Airport - but, by the time the chopper reaches Ballyteigue Bay...........so many are already lost...
...and at breakfast the next morning Barack Obama asks if it is true that for the sake of one million euro, the Irish Government directed that there should be no SAR cover that night in the area known for hundreds of years as the 'Graveyard of a Thousand Ships'?
...'Yes' responds the Taioseach, 'that is the case'
...'and that was on the advice of the experts in the field of search and rescue?'
...'No, it was against their advice'
...'is reckless endangerment a criminal offence in Ireland?' asks President Obama as he leaves.