This article is from page 11 of the 2014-08-26 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 11 JPG
THE construction of a new rescue centre at Doolin will help save lives by improving response times by the Doolin Unit of the Irish Coast Guard.
The centre, which was built at a cost of € 1.8 million, is large enough for all materials owned by the coastguard to be stored in one place, which will cut response times in emergency situations.
The new building, which will become fully operational this week, was due to be officially opened in October of this year but it is now understood that an opening ceremony will not take place until March of 2015.
“This will make it much more ef- ficient for us, all the equipment is in the one place so when the team comes there will be no searching around for equipment or anything everyone knows where it will be. It will take a few days to straighten it out and get everything in place but at the same time it will all now be in the one building and that’s what is important,” said Mattie Shannon of the Doolin Unit of the Irish Coast Guard.
“It will make us faster, especially for boat launches and emergency situations. Then as well when they [the volunteers] come back there will be more comfort. There will be changing rooms and bathrooms and showers and a proper area to wash down the boat.
“All the volunteers have been in over the past week, they have been transporting equipment from the various places that we store it, and there is still more to be done. The volunteers are working away, fitting out different systems like the wifi and things like that. We are still waiting for the communication aerial to be erected for the VHF radios and the paging system, they are going in this week. At that stage we will be fully operational.
“We are delighted to be moved in. We launched our first boat from the new centre last week and we have launched three times already. It’s a fantastic place and it’s going well.”