Mr. Drew Harris:

By eight o'clock we had received resources from the eastern region but also some resources from the north-western region. Other resources were moving across the country to us constantly from as far away as Mayo. They were arriving throughout the night to further supplement their colleagues. In effect, we started from a standing start at 1.30 p.m. on Thursday afternoon. I think all of us realised that this was something different as the initial details became apparent, say by about 2 p.m. The original scene was so chaotic that it took some time to establish the effects and what we were actually dealing with. I would say that the organisation did respond quickly, in effect from a standing start, to this incident. We had preparations in place in terms of the numbers we had trained in public order and the fact that we have two public order units on every day in any case.