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Displaying items by tag: Naval Sailors

An organisation which represents enlisted personnel in the Defence Forces says it's "very sceptical" about the Department of Defence's claim that it will address the accommodation crisis at Naval Service headquarters "as a matter of urgency".

PDFORRA's president Mark Keane, writes The Irish Examiner, said plans to convert a Victorian-era block at Haulbowline Island were drawn up in 2014 and since then nothing had happened, even though more and more sailors are now sleeping on ships.

As far back as March 1992, the then Defence Forces Quartermaster General (equivalent today to a Deputy Chief of Staff) recommended that accommodation at military barracks should be adequate and "aspire to the standard within the civilian community generally".

Latest figures obtained from Defence Forces sources show more than 70 sailors are sleeping on ships at the naval base.

Many are young and so poorly paid they can't afford soaring rents and have no choice but to live on board the vessels they crew.

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Published in Navy

Coastal Notes Coastal Notes covers a broad spectrum of stories, events and developments in which some can be quirky and local in nature, while other stories are of national importance and are on-going, but whatever they are about, they need to be told.

Stories can be diverse and they can be influential, albeit some are more subtle than others in nature, while other events can be immediately felt. No more so felt, is firstly to those living along the coastal rim and rural isolated communities. Here the impact poses is increased to those directly linked with the sea, where daily lives are made from earning an income ashore and within coastal waters.

The topics in Coastal Notes can also be about the rare finding of sea-life creatures, a historic shipwreck lost to the passage of time and which has yet many a secret to tell. A trawler's net caught hauling more than fish but cannon balls dating to the Napoleonic era.

Also focusing the attention of Coastal Notes, are the maritime museums which are of national importance to maintaining access and knowledge of historical exhibits for future generations.

Equally to keep an eye on the present day, with activities of existing and planned projects in the pipeline from the wind and wave renewables sector and those of the energy exploration industry.

In addition Coastal Notes has many more angles to cover, be it the weekend boat leisure user taking a sedate cruise off a long straight beach on the coast beach and making a friend with a feathered companion along the way.

In complete contrast is to those who harvest the sea, using small boats based in harbours where infrastructure and safety poses an issue, before they set off to ply their trade at the foot of our highest sea cliffs along the rugged wild western seaboard.

It's all there, as Coastal Notes tells the stories that are arguably as varied to the environment from which they came from and indeed which shape people's interaction with the surrounding environment that is the natural world and our relationship with the sea.