The Irish Mountain Rescue Association has called on the Government to increase funding to smaller mountain rescue teams it says are struggling to pay for vital equipment such as ropes and radios.
"The smaller teams who are less busy are more financially strapped. They still need the money to train, to have a Land Rover, to have ropes and radios," said spokesman Gerry Christie.
There are no charges for mountain rescue in Ireland , unlike in continental Europe, and the €160,000 in annual Government funding for the country's ten mountain rescue teams only accounts for around 40% of their costs.
The rest is raised through public and corporate donations and sponsored events. Mr Christie said that while Fáilte Ireland attracted tourists to the country to go hillwalking and mountain climbing, it was the mountain rescue teams who helped them when they got into difficulty.
"We do rescue a lot of foreign people and we feel we should get a little bit more state support," he said. According to the most recent statistics, mountain rescue teams were called out to 176 incidents in 2004.
Their members spent around 21,000 person hours on the mountains, an equivalent of more than 2,600 working days. The three largest mountain rescue teams - Dublin/Wicklow, Kerry and the Glen of Imall - have agreed to allocate a larger proportion of the annual state aid to the smaller teams because of their funding difficulties.
But Mr Christie said the mountain rescue teams did not want to receive all of their funding from the state. He said that might give people the perception that the team were semi-professional and would make them less likely to provide support.
"We get a lot of hidden support from the rural community. When our mobile phones don't work, we're using their domestic phones. We don't want to lose that connection with the local community," he said.
Around 30% of the people rescued from mountains in 2004 suffered limb injuries, but there were also seven cases of head, spinal or serious multiple injuries, nine heart attacks and twenty four cases of hypothermia.
The mountain rescue teams dealt with 17 fatalities. According to Mr Christie, most of the people rescued personally write back to the teams afterwards to thank them and often include a donation.
"The fact is we don't expect anything. The mountain rescue itself is normally a sufficient reward. But if the people who are rescued feel they can make a contribution, that's not a bad thing either."
He said the donations ranged from small amounts to "ostentatious contributions" of well over €1,000. The Irish Mountain Rescue Association has welcomed the extra €100,000 allocated by the Government to mountain rescue teams this year to pay for training and development.
PA