How do you legislate for safety at sea? The answer is that you don't. This is the prevailing view among those involved in outdoor pursuits, even as pressure continues for a Government response to the drownings off Co Sligo's Strandhill beach a fortnight ago.
Education, rather than legislation, is acknowledged to be the most effective preventive measure, and yet an awareness of the marine environment is still not seen as a priority on the school curriculum.
Nor is adequate support or recognition given to the role of outdoor pursuits centres. Were it to be otherwise, figures for marine accidents would be steadily falling rather than rising. And the Naval Service and Garda diving teams would not be constantly called out.
"Constant" is the operative word for Lieut John Leech (37) since he became the head of the Naval Service diving team in January. In the past five months, he has spent two weekends at home. His diary since the new year is a chronology of heartbreak and pain. Small wonder that he and his colleagues maintain a professional detachment and talk little about their work.
On the night the alarm was raised in Co Sligo, they drove through the dark, leaving the Naval Service base at Haulbowline, Co Cork, at 11.30 p.m. and arriving at Strandhill beach at first light on May 18th. Barely out of the vehicle at around 5 a.m., they were pulling on gear. The Donegal SubAqua Club and Air Corps had located one of the bodies of the three young men from Gurteen.
Only hours later, as the families of Bobby Taylor, Michael Higgins and Tommy Coyle tried to cope with their grief, the divers were en route south from Co Sligo to Dunmore East, Co Waterford. A fishing vessel had snagged an unidentified object in its trawl. The potential munition turned out to be a boulder.
Back at base, they were summoned again that Friday night. Gardai had reported that a car, believed to have been driven by a thief, had crashed into the river Lee. The divers worked in murky waters till 1.15 a.m. The grim task would make one or two paragraphs in newspapers the following day.
Drug interdiction and mine clearance are other parts of a responsibility which requires a punishing level of fitness. The commitment, which can take a heavy toll on family life, requires a great deal of risk-taking. Chief Petty Officer Muiris Mahon was given a Distinguished Service Medal for retrieving bodies in shark-infested waters after the Air India crash over a decade ago.
"This is an elite force, taken from all sections of the Naval Service," says Commander Gene Ryan, staff officer of operations at Naval Service headquarters. "Their standard of training is exceptionally high and it is a unit of which the Flag Officer, Commodore Kavanagh, is very proud."
Lieut Leech, a Midlands man who took up diving in Athlone when he was 14, believes that more wealth and greater mobility may have contributed to the rise in accidents on inland waterways and at sea.
Marine leisure-related incidents come a close second to commercial fishing in the annual statistics table. Enthusiasm is often not matched by an awareness of the dangers in spite of the best efforts of the National Safety Council and other public education campaigns.
Recently equipped with electronic bleepers to facilitate communication with the Irish Marine Emergency Service (IMES), the members of the Naval Service diving team have been affected by falling numbers within its ranks. A combination of increasing frustration and low morale has led to the loss of 15 divers last year alone. Such expertise is not easily replaced given that there is a 50 per cent failure rate in the aptitude test for training.
Strength is now down to 31 wet divers and 11 supervisors. The service can barely man the decompression chamber at Haulbowline. The team should be sending at least one participant to an eight-month mine-clearance course run by the Royal Navy, and should be equipped with at least one remotely-operated vehicle (ROV) or submersible.
But when the diving allowance is still a mere £7 a day for callouts, the five-figure fee for the course is obviously beyond landlocked defence budgets.
Ironically, one man who recognised the value of the unit's work was himself the subject of a call-out several months ago. Lieut Leech knew the former marine minister, Mr Hugh Coveney, as a neighbour. It was he who found Mr Coveney's body in the south-west waters of Robert's Cove.
