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Displaying items by tag: Taoiseach Public Service Excellence Awards

#NAVAL SERVICE – The Irish Maritime and Energy Resource Cluster (IMERC), based in Haulbowline, Co. Cork, has won an award at the Taoiseach's Public Service Excellence Awards.

Minister for Justice Equality and Defence, Alan Shatter TD, was delighted to congratulate the Irish Naval Service for the award won by IMERC. The Naval Service was one of four areas within his departments to win an award at a ceremony held yesterday in Dublin Castle.

The Minister said "IMERC is a unique example of joined-up-thinking across three public sector institutions, the Irish Naval Service as an element of the Defence Forces under the Department of Defence, University College Cork and the Cork Institute of Technology.

He added, "This collaboration has produced results that have leveraged major capital investment, succeeded in attracting inward investment, supported indigenous industry and enhanced capacity for research and innovation in Ireland's maritime sector."

The cluster concept is the first such project to have been selected for the Taoiseach's National Awards and in which was among 20 selected for its 'innovation' and potential 'excellence' of the 190 applications.

The developing IMERC campus is to feature the world's largest energy renewable centre. The cluster aims to create up to 52,000  jobs in the wave energy technologies sector by 2020.

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.