Why do so many of us ignore water safety when up to 150 people a year ie in water accidents, asks Lorna Siggins.

'When you get into your car, you put on your seat belt. When you walk on a building site, you wear a hard hat. Why is it that people still think they are immortal when they go out on water?"

Tosh Lavery, retired Garda sergeant, was almost moved to tears when he saw a recent photograph in this newspaper. It showed three well-known politicians, including one genial Minister of State, among several adults and children on Dublin's Royal Canal. One child stood precariously on a gunwale, and there wasn't a lifejacket or personal flotation device (PFD) among them.

Lieut Cdr John Leech, chief executive officer of Irish Water Safety, was incensed. On the day of publication, his national office in Galway took a stream of calls from its members and members of the public, who were, he wrote, "enraged by this issue". Some six children under the age of 14 drowned every year, he said, among about 150 fatalities in water. Publishing a photograph involving children in a highly risky situation, with adults standing by "in innocent oblivion", was "encouraging this dangerous activity".

A fair point and one with which Lavery agrees. During his 30 years and two months with the Garda Water Unit, there are few marine accidents that Lavery hasn't witnessed. He was involved in grim recoveries after the Whiddy Island disaster, which claimed 51 lives in Bantry Bay in January 1979; the death of Lord Louis Mountbatten and three others, including 15-year-old Paul Maxwell after the IRA explosion off Mullaghmore, Co Sligo, in August of the same year; the loss of Donegal fishermen after the sinkings of the Carrig Una (1975), the Evelyn Marie (1976) off Rathlin O'Beirne island, and the Skifjord (1981).

When he retired recently, he received a €50 note and a card from two Burtonport fishermen who had been in a sister vessel during a Donegal sinking. The card is among a handful of notes of thanks he has received over the years.

Like most professionals and volunteers involved in marine rescue, Lavery never did it for the credit. On countless occasions, he has spent time with grieving families, trying to explain how or why their loved one lost their life.

Ironically, Lavery has recovered several victims of drowning from the very same stretch of Royal Canal on which the photograph was taken. On many occasions, in many places, he has found people who could have survived had they been wearing a lifejacket. Hypothermia poses the biggest risk to people in the water, as loss of body heat occurs 26 times faster than on land.

Yet just last weekend, basic ignorance surfaced again when the Dún Laoghaire lifeboat rescued two people in a 6m open boat in Dublin Bay. The couple had no lifejackets, no flares, no radio, only their mobile phone, as they drifted into a busy shipping channel.

It was "akin to having a picnic on the main runway at a busy airport," lifeboat spokesman David Branigan said. On the same day, this reporter took a trip up the river Corrib, and passed four small angling vessels - with not one angler wearing a lifejacket.

It is not just the breach in legislation that annoys Lavery, it is the total lack of awareness about the risks of being on water. "Yes, the law says only certain categories should be wearing personal flotation devices [ PFDs see panel]. But adults are role models for kids, who should all be equipped, and in any case 95 per cent of the drownings I have picked up over three decades have been grown women and men.

"Then there's the blasé attitude to safety when people have mobile phones," he adds. "It is not a completely reliable form of communication. Phones can get wet, batteries can run out and there's also a myth about being able to use the emergency number."

A phone which is turned on without a pin number can be used in an emergency by dialling 112. It does not work with the more familiar number, 999.

Three years ago last month five people drowned when the 26ft angling boat, Pisces, sank almost a mile off Fethard-on-Sea, Co Wexford. The fact that none of those on board was wearing a PFD or lifejacket prompted former marine minister Dermot Ahern to introduce lifejacket/PFD legislation. Separately, the skipper was charged for manslaughter.

"That skipper is being made a scapegoat for our own casual attitude," Lavery says. "If there is going to be legislation, it should apply to everyone on a boat, not just certain categories."

In Ireland, lifejackets or personal flotation devices (PFDs) have to be worn by fishermen on decks of commercial vessels, and are mandatory on board any boat of seven metres (23 feet) or less in length.

Boats over this size must carry a PFD for every person on board, and all children under 16 must wear them on the deck of all moving vessels.

To date there have been no prosecutions by the Department of Marine. The rules are covered from pieces of legislation in a number of different Acts; a comprehensive Bill to draw all the aspects of water safety together is being drafted.

PFD is a generic term covering lifejackets and buoyancy aids. A lifejacket is designed to turn an unconscious person face-up.

A buoyancy aid is not guaranteed to do this, but is a device for keeping one afloat close to shore.

The internationally recognised measurement for buoyancy is a Newton, and safety gear must by law carry the "CE" mark.

A buoyancy aid is 50 Newton, and is for competent swimmers who are near the bank or shore, or who have help and means of rescue close by.

The 100 Newton lifejacket is intended for those who may have to wait for rescue but are likely to do so in sheltered and calm conditions. The 150 Newton lifejacket is for general offshore and rough weather use, and should manoeuvre an unconscious person to a safe position. The 275 Newton lifejacket is designed for offshore and extreme conditions.

All safety equipment is subject to 21 per cent Vat - a fact highlighted regularly, and negatively, by the Irish Marine Federation.

Irish Water Safety (IWS) publishes safety literature, including advice on PFDs, which is available from its office at The Long Walk, Galway, (091) 564400 or website www.iws.ie

• The Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources and Irish Coast Guard safety literature is on http://www.safetyonthewater.ie