McCarthy urges people to take precautions by the sea

12.00.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Thu 4th Sep 2008

Alliance Strangford MLA Kieran McCarthy

Alliance Strangford MLA Kieran McCarthy has called for people to take precautions when sailing or at the seaside. His comments follow the rescue of four teenagers off the County Down coast after their dinghies got into difficulties yesterday evening.

Kieran McCarthy MLA said: "The sea can be an extremely dangerous place especially if people do not take the necessary precautions. These boys were lucky that a passer-by spotted them off the coast otherwise we might have been hearing about an even worse tragedy. If young people want to use boats or sail, they should ideally be supervised by adults.

"No matter the size of the boat people should always have lifejackets as well as having someone monitoring where you are, so that if people get into difficulties they can be rescued. Even if the weather looks good when you set off and the sea seems calm, this can often rapidly change for the worse.

"The coastguard service does such a remarkable job but they can not be everywhere at once, so I would urge people to take all the safety measures they can."

ENDS