Rescuer's daughter was on hoax call tape

THE voice of a tearful young girl broadcast by RTE as part of a hoax call to the marine rescue services was in fact that of the daughter of a member of the voluntary rescue services.

Her "Daddy, don't die" call was to her father, who had put to sea in response to the earlier hoax call far rescue.

RTE radio and TV news last week broadcast a tape of a male speaking by radio to the Valentia Coast Radio Station in Co Kerry.

After the man had spoken a young girl could be heard, saying: "Oh Daddy. Oh daddy, don't die."

The tape of the hoax call was broadcast in the hope that the caller would be identified by the public.

Mr Gene O'Sullivan, chief of operations at the Valentia station explained the mix up, saying they had assumed afterwards that the girl was with the hoaxer.

"It sounded like she had been schooled to come on at that stage," he said.

The hoax call was received on Monday evening and led to a rescue operation involving the Irish Marine Emergency Services helicopter at Shannon, the Fenit all weather lifeboat, the Kilrush and Kilkee rescue craft, and three fishing vessels.

The caller claimed his fishing boat was on fire two miles off Loop Head.

Mr John Nolan, who runs a supermarket in Kilkee, Co Clare, and is vice president of the Kilkee marine rescue service, was among those who set out to sea in response to the call. His wife, Eileen, switched on a VHF radio to follow the progress of the operation.

At one stage Ms Nolan was out of the room and her six year old daughter, Sheena, pressed a button on the radio set which enabled her to speak to her father's rescue boat.

When she then told her mother, Ms Nolan assumed Sheena had simply spoken into the radio without pressing the necessary button.

It was not until the family were listening to the RTE news the following evening that they discovered that Sheena's words had been broadcast, and had been taped by the station at Valentia.

"I nearly got sick," said Ms Nolan.

Although there was a gap of 20 minutes between the hoax caller's last contact with Valentia and Sheena's call to her father the two episodes followed each other in the edited tape given to RTE by the emergency services in Valentia for the broadcast.

Ms Nolan said she wanted the mistake cleared up. "I didn't want to feel that we were part of what that gangster was up to," she said.

She pointed out that the rescue service volunteers leave their jobs to take part in operations, and cannot get life assurance cover.

The Kilkee rescue service is paid for almost entirely through local fund raising and requires about £5,000 per year to run. Each call out costs around Sligo, said Mr Manuel Di Lucia, chairman of the service.

In its 15 years in existence the service has saved 84 lives and recovered 14 bodies, he said. Next Sunday it will launch a new £22,000 rescue boat.

Gardai at Kilrush, Co Clare, are investigating the hoax call. Under the Broadcasting and Wireless Telegraphy Act, 1988, such a caller can be fined up to £1,000 and/or imprisoned for six months.