Irish Civil Defence

r3nu4l

Inspired by this thread: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054940093

OK, I was in the Dublin Civil Defence* (rescue service) for years and also a member of the Mountain Rescue Team and at one time their "Special Tasks" team (don't know if that team exists anymore, I think it was very short-lived!).

So my main gripe was always that people trained really hard and were (mostly) very good at what they did but lack of equipment and poor promotion structure meant that morale was often quite low and after a while people became cynical about any new initiative.

Now I loved the Civil Defence and really enjoyed working with combined teams for the Endeavour '95 exercise but overall I left very dissatisfied. Any current or former members want to give an opinion?

*Yes, I know they were stupid yellow uniforms and don't carry guns and stand around a lot at parades so no need for those kind of posts, thanks

civdef

The issues regarding poor promotion opportunities and internal politics seem to affect Dublin units more than in many other counties.

I'm an instructor in CD, and joining the organisation was of great benefit to me, have gained loads of qualifications, did stuff I'd otherwise never have got a chance to, occasionally felt that I had actually made a difference and had a lot of fun in the process.

I honestly feel that things are improving ion the organisation, equipment levels have never been higher, there seems to be an atmosphere of increased profesionalism about, and they're getting rid of the stupid yellow overalls (except for the rescue work they were intended for).

Standing around duties are becoming a thing of the past, with many counties now refusing to do them.

There's at least one other CD thread on boards:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=115376

an unoffical forum at:
http://www.irishcivildefence.org

and the not-fantastic official site at:
htp://www.civildefence.ie

r3nu4l

CivDef wrote:

I'm an instructor in CD, and joining the organisation was of great benefit to me, have gained loads of qualifications, did stuff I'd otherwise never have got a chance to, occasionally felt that I had actually made a difference and had a lot of fun in the process.

I feel the same, I got some really useful experience and to be honest I felt it was a natural extension of all the things I liked about the Scouts where I was also a leader.

I know I made a difference on occassion but overall, I felt the volunteers (in Dublin anyway) were badly let down by a poor officer structure and lack of equipment. Cronyism also seemed to play a larger part than it should have.

I have no qualms about the professionalism of the volunteers. Our Special tasks team was very professional and dedicated. But because we were drawn from different teams and services across south Dublin, some officers had a problem with their people training in a team outside their control. Some felt it was elitism but it wasn't, it was a highly-trained and dedicated team of 20 with diverse experience that were trained to be ready for any situation.

Anyway, I would still recommend that anyone should join, despite the ridiculous politics and policies, I had a great time with the CD

Thanks for the links!