The funerals take place today of the two hill-walkers who died in Kerry this week. Part-time mountain rescuers often help prevent such fatalities. John O'Dwyer laments the lack of public funding for our mountain rescue volunteers.
Last September, while climbing Tower Ridge on Scotland's Ben Nevis, I was alerted by shouting from above. Pushing ahead, I discovered a climber had fallen from an area known as the Eastern Traverse. A mobile call had already been made for mountain rescue and within about 10 minutes a giant Sea King helicopter was hovering above us. A few minutes later a fully equipped RAF rescue team of four had been lowered to the accident scene.
Unfortunately, it was too late for this Scottish climber who had fallen 200 metres. The remains were airlifted from the area within about 30 minutes, bringing to an end the 5,001st mountain rescue mission by the RAF in the Fort William area of the Scottish Highlands. This was not, of course an end, but a beginning for the family and friends of the victim, still unaware that a helicopter was heading in their direction carrying a silent cargo of heartache.
Had this accident occurred in Ireland the tragedy would be no less, but the rescue response would necessarily have been different.
There would have been no full-time airforce personnel ready and waiting for a call-out. Instead, volunteers would immediately and unquestioningly have left family, workplace or recreation. Irish rescuers are not only unpaid for this essential service, they must also provide their own equipment and even shoulder the fuel costs involved. This altruism is certainly not universal, as those of us choosing to climb in Alpine regions are well aware. In most European countries mountain search and rescue is treated as a commercial service and must be paid for. Insurance has been considered essential for Alpine climbing since an English climber fell from the Swiss Eiger in the 1960s. An attempt by the local mountain guides to rescue his companion was abandoned, due to the danger from rock-fall. Later, he was carried successfully from the mountain by well known British climbers, Whillans and Bonnington in conditions which Bonnington described as "the most dangerous he had experienced".
However, the survivor, Brian Nally, was then presented in his hospital bed, with a substantial bill for rescue services, not by the British pair, but instead for time spent by local guides in the first unsuccessful rescue attempt.
In Ireland, such an occurrence is fortunately still unthinkable. An honourable tradition dictates that mountaineers respond immediately and voluntarily to any fellow climber in difficulty.
Few indeed - least of all the rescuers themselves - would wish to see this voluntarism replaced by the commercial European model for search and rescue. It is nevertheless, stretching the concept to an extreme when our mountain rescue volunteers must either dig into their own pockets for essential equipment, or undergo the time-wasting process of begging public contributions.
According to the Irish Mountain Rescue association (Incident Report, 2000) "mountain rescue is the only land based emergency service which has to rely on fundraising to provide over two-thirds of its equipment and operating costs".
Our mountain rescue is unfortunately still light years away from the situation in the Scottish Highlands where visitors to Fort William observe a half dozen sparkling new off-roaders in a neatly parked row outside Mountain Rescue Centre. Meanwhile, Kerry mountain rescue make do with an ancient Army carrier - a relic from Sarejevo - to carry rescue equipment across rough terrain.
This is at a time when the demand for mountain rescue services is ever increasing. Last year 162 persons were helped from the Irish mountains by our rescue teams. These figures take no account of the real value from rescue services - the hundreds of thousands of hill-walkers and ramblers who safely visit our upland areas each year, secure in the knowledge that help is available if required.
Bord Fáilte estimates 300,000 hill-walkers visit Ireland. Applying average figures for expenditure by international tourists in Ireland, this represents a gain to the economy of €190 million.
Then there is the value of mountain-based activites to the home holiday market and the many charities gaining from funds raised by hill-walking related events. Finally, there is the unquantifiable benefits to the general population arising from safer access to some of the most beguiling scenery imaginable.
Mountain rescue team members voluntarily give the equivalent of about four working weeks a year to the cause of ensuring safer upland recreation for all. This is an extraordinary commitment to a task w which is dangerous and harrowing, and which is never anything but physically demanding. Greater recourse to the hills for recreational pursuit means more call-outs, more rescues and most frustrating of all, all-night searches for individuals who didn't bother to tell anyone they got down safely.
Modern society increases the threat of litigation even against rescuers - who must now have insurance - and brings the new phenomenon of the mobile phone call of first resort, when facing any difficulty. This goes something like this: "Hello mountain rescue. I think we've lost our way up here on top of a mountain, somewhere. Would you ever pop up and get us?"
Rescue volunteers are now more than expert climbers, they require expertise in emergency medicine, victim reassurance and even bereavement counseling. A modest level of Exchequer funding - about €300,000 - would cover the costs associated with maintaining our fine tradition of voluntary mountain rescue. The time has come to rescue our rescuers from the indignity of the public begging bowl.
John O'Dwyer is a hill-walker and mountain leader who organises hill climbs to raise funds for charity