24 September 2018
By Elaine Murphy
elaine@TheCork.ie
Cork South West Fine Gael TD and Minister of State (a.k.a. Junior Minister) at the Department of Health, Jim Daly has paid tribute to local Civil Defence volunteers in West Cork, as they experience another busy year.
New figures released by the Department of Defence, have shown nationwide that Civil Defence teams have already taken part in almost 1500 duties in the first six months of 2018.
Jim Daly TD, Junior Minister for Mental Health and Older People
Picture: David Keane
These range from missing person searches, supporting the emergency services and assisting with community events.
The new figures show that the Civil Defence units in West Cork, which are made up of units in the West Cork and South Cork divisions, engaged in 93 duties in the first six months of the year.
This is on the top of the 135 duties completed last year, the 32 duties in 2016 and the 30 duties in 2015.
“Our Civil Defence volunteers in West Cork are doing us extremely proud, as illustrated by these latest figures,” Junior Minister Daly said.
“They make a huge commitment to our communities – and are always on standby to assist other agencies and I have no doubt they will once again be out in force with the winter season approaching.”
Civil Defence has 3,500 volunteers based in every Local Authority area in the country. Civil Defence has a wide range of equipment to deal with severe weather including 88 Boats, 47 Fire Tenders, 9 Floating Pontoon Units and 130 Four Wheel Drive vehicles.
For more information on becoming a Civil Defence volunteer, or have a member of Civil Defence contact you, please visit https://www.civildefence.ie/contact/.
Concluding Junior Minister Daly paid tribute to the Civil Defence volunteers, “I want to take this opportunity to thank our local Civil Defence volunteers in West Cork who provide a great service to our communities, especially in challenging times.”
