County Longford Scuba Divers hosting event to highlight vital role it plays in search and rescue

County Longford Scuba Divers will host a presentation of short talks from the club's members.

The event (at 4pm on Friday, November 15 at their clubhouse in Templemichael Business Park N39 DT88) will feature four talks, each highlighting aspects of the club and its role in Search and Rescue, diving training, and the maintenance of high safety and equipment standards.

The event will also see the club showcasing their key equipment, their new compressor, the vital search and recovery equipment as well as its boats and van.

John Flanagan, the National Search and Recovery Coordinator discussed the Longford club.

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It currently boasts 28 members and in the past year has successfully carried out five Search and Recovery missions.

“Search and Recovery is all about bringing closure to families, particularly water searches. Water searches can go on for a couple of weeks, often a few months.

“In the club, they’re all qualified divers and of those qualified divers certain divers will go on to do the Search and Recovery training."

Co Longford Scuba Divers cover not only local waterways but assist in searches further a field as well.

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“We’ve covered searches down to the West of Ireland,” explained John, “Or anywhere else requesting us to attend in order to back up other units and help them in searches.”

Each year the club sees members going through the process of Search of Recovery training.

“Every year we would have three of four members who go right through and it’s a long process of trying to get qualified as a diver and then eventually gaining the experience to do search and recovery.”

Of course, the training is not mandatory and those wishing to just dive for fun are more than welcome.

As well there are non-divers involved in the Search and Recovery part of the club who take on the search on the waters surface.

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The club's Search and Recovery department helps families across Longford and further.

“Nearly all searches that we have been a part of have been concluded successfully, if there is a recovery done either by ourselves, government entities or other volunteer groups, particularly on in-shore searches there is usually always a conclusion.

“But that can take up to six weeks to two months at a time,” explained John, “A search could take one hour, or it could take weeks .”

The club is run completely by volunteers.

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“It’s all done on a voluntary basis. The club's costs are the building and its running costs. We have three boats: two rigs and an inflatable boat. We also have a van with compressors, and then we have diving equipment that needs regular servicing each year,” says John.

Mr Flanagan made sure to thank the volunteers who played a key role in raising money for the club. Volunteers are a vital part of organising collections and raising awareness for the club's activities. The club has also received grants to fund a lot of their equipment.

The talks are taking place on Friday, November 15.