Mr. Seán Hogan:

I referred earlier to the Carrickmines tragedy. As is appropriate in the aftermath of such an appalling tragedy, the audit and improvement of fire safety in local authority provided Traveller accommodation was a critical task undertaken by the directorate this year and the publication of the concluding report in September 2016 marked the completion of the first stage in this process. While recognising broader issues relating to Traveller accommodation, we set about working with Traveller representative groups to develop a culturally appropriate approach to the task. The review process focused on life safety and on ensuring that practical and appropriate fire safety measures, which contribute to preventing loss of life and serious injury in local authority Traveller accommodation, have been applied systematically across the country. This involved appraising fire safety in Traveller accommodation against standards set out in the working draft Guide to Fire Safety in Existing Traveller Accommodation, which was prepared to assist local authorities in conducting the review. It also involved running a series of community fire safety initiatives aimed at Traveller organisations and the wider Traveller community so that awareness of fire risk and fire safety is developed and maintained over the longer term.

The report entitled Programme to Review and Enhance Fire Safety in Local Authority Provided Traveller Accommodation was published by the directorate on 21 September 2016. We have also included the full text of this report with the briefing document for the committee. The report enumerates fire safety measures and actions implemented as well as proposing and recommending a series of further actions to sustain fire safety for the community into the longer term. Recognising that what has been done is a first stage in a process which needs to be mainstreamed into ongoing work programmes, the report makes a number of recommendations which are now being given effect to and which will embed the issue of fire safety in Traveller accommodation into future work programmes.

Moving finally to emergency management, the Department of Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government is assigned the lead Government Department role for response to severe weather events. On behalf of the Department, the national directorate is mandated to take on the task of convening and leading the national emergency co-ordination group, which brings together the entire panoply of Government when severe weather, flooding or other such events occur. Last winter, the directorate convened a national emergency co-ordination group in anticipation of the arrival of Storm Desmond. The group met on 43 occasions until the floodwaters began to recede in mid-January 2016 to provide a joined-up, whole-of-Government, response to deal with the flooding crisis. Next week, we intend bringing to Government a review report on the response to last winter’s flooding event. Although for reasons of timing we were not in a position to include this report with our briefing for the committee, I can tell it that the report describes the meteorological and hydrological characteristics of the last winter period and reviews the impact of the storms and subsequent flooding on the communities involved. The report describes the preparedness and the response of the State agencies to the severe weather events. The report also details the measures that were put in place by Government to assist those worst affected in dealing with the aftermath of the flooding.

At the local level, arrangements for the response to emergency events have developed greatly in the last decade in Ireland, learning from each previous event. The 2006 document, A Framework for Major Emergency Management, sets out arrangements whereby the three principal response agencies, An Garda Síochána, the HSE and local authorities, work together and with the Defence Forces and the voluntary and community sectors in responding to emergencies. Severe weather response protocols are in place in all of the principal response agencies. While satisfied that our current system has solid strength, a number of aspects have been identified for improvement arising out of last winter’s experience. One interesting theme is how we can further enhance arrangements for working with communities in managing such crises and, in our view, the place of the community and voluntary sector in building resilience to emergencies needs to be developed.

I welcome again this opportunity to meet the committee and present on the work of the national directorate in our efforts to develop and improve fire and emergency management policy and service delivery in the interest of the people. I assure the committee that the national directorate is committed to achieving continuous service improvement and we hope we will continue to provide the necessary balance of leadership, support and oversight required to ensure the provision of consistently effective, safe and quality fire and emergency services in Ireland. I look forward to hearing the views and issues of committee members and hope we can endeavour to answer questions they may have on our work.