Mr. Seán Hogan:

We face constant challenges in the world we are in and we have to balance them continuously. I put my hands up and state there have been situations where, in retrospect, I would have made an alternative judgement about these things. That happens, however, in these areas.

Turning to the local authorities, that is again an interesting point. The major emergency development programme was a two-year programme designed to embed this framework for major emergency management. That framework guides how local authorities in an area are to work with An Garda Síochána and the HSE. Those are the bodies charged by Government with responding to situations. If there is a road traffic accident, a local authority's fire brigade, the Garda and the HSE’s ambulance service will respond and they are used to working together. This framework was put in place in 2006 to enable those services to work together.

A defined set of steps was gone over. Part of our approach has been to work carefully with people. There may at times have been an approach of policy being set by the national Government and execution being done by those outside of national Government. We have stepped into the space of working carefully and closely with the local authorities, the HSE and An Garda Síochána. Our national steering group on major emergency management includes representatives from the Department of Justice and Equality, the Department of Health, the HSE and local authorities. We collaborate closely to ensure these people can work together. I have a fair degree of confidence in local authorities. I would actually be stronger than that: local authorities have taken emergency management and the local response onto themselves and have really made an effort in this area. They have realised how important it is. Whether dealing with flooding in Donegal, snow in Wexford or storms in Cork, they have risen to the challenge.

At the end of each event we gather in the 27 areas we deal with and reflect on events. There are 31 local authorities but some provide services jointly. I recall that after Storm Ophelia people in Cork spoke about how they did certain things and they were quizzed by their peers and colleagues. I am confident that the good practice evident in Cork can now be found in all 27 areas after everybody in that room went home and acted. There will always be small variations in how people do things but the local authorities have really taken that on board. I have already referred to doing what we term an external validation in the fire services. We stated national policy and what we wanted those services to do. A small group was then appointed to visit every authority. That was a very beneficial exercise. We have not undertaken that same exercise regarding emergency management but we have a slightly different way of doing that.

We are the parent Department of the local government system and the local authorities have stepped in and done the work necessary. They have spent money carrying out those responses and as a Department we have stepped in to support them. In the past decade we have provided an additional €90 million to local authorities for unbudgeted expenditure undertaken carrying out those responses. As part of that process, the money will not be forthcoming unless things are in order and the major emergency plans, flooding plans and severe weather plans are in place. It is a case of linking both elements. Local authorities, from my perspective, have undertaken their responsibilities. I have a strong degree of confidence regarding what will happen when I have to pick up the phone to deal with a particular local authority. There is a system in place and local co-ordination will kick in.

As weather events arrived this last winter, Mr. Leonard and his staff had practically weekly contact with individuals within the local authorities concerning their preparations for and awareness of what was coming. We have a high degree of contact and that can mitigate the worst effects of events. An example would be the flooding in Donegal in August 2017. There was a question of whether we should have convened the National Emergency Co-ordination Group. We had been in touch with Donegal, however. We knew the county had mobilised its services as we expected in accordance with the national system laid out. We were not going to add any additional value by convening in Dublin. The right people were in place in Donegal and they were doing what we had asked them to do. We convened in Dublin when we got into recovery mode two or three days later to ensure that all Departments were supporting Donegal County Council in restoring services and areas as best it could in the aftermath of that weather event.

That is the area where I work with the local authorities. In answering this question about local authorities, therefore, I must state that I have a strong degree of confidence in the local government system. That is not just with the executive. My background is working in fire services and those services have led much of the work on emergency management within the local government system. Responding to emergencies is the day to day business of those services. They have learned how to do that and how to lead the process. That has been successful from our perspective. In the two months after Storm Ophelia, through the Association of Irish Local Government, AILG, we met about 300 local authority members to discuss the response, their place in that and the things they were doing.

It is not that the local authorities are accountable to us in the Department. The Donegal County Council executive is accountable in its own chamber first of all. The members of Donegal County Council met two days after the flooding and the Inishowen area met on the day. They are the ones to whom the response must first be justified.

It is not that I am sitting in the Custom House thinking or wondering what will the local authorities in Longford, Louth or whatever county do. I know how the system works and I know that the local members will hold people to account. What we wanted to do in our effort was to set out the expectation of what people would do. Part of the job we have done is to present the expectation. It is not the case of saying that one has to do everything, anywhere, any time. We are stating what is reasonably expected of officials and this is what they should be benchmarked against. We have all the documents here that the local authorities are working to. This is what they are expected to do. By and large the staff get on with that. The staff know now at this stage that they will get the support from national level and they have received that support. That is a big help. They are not hesitant before they go forth and go out. From our perspective this has helped.

Local authorities have been particularly successful at engaging with communities. One of the strengths of Ireland is the way that communities respond. This is due to a number of reasons. People see that things are working at national level and at local level things are working and, therefore, communities are happy to do whatever they can to help themselves and their neighbours. That is one of the very positive aspects of the emergency management system. The local government system has been particularly strong. We have further to go, and there is a lot of work to do about the communities.

It is interesting that Senator Boyhan raised maritime emergencies. Transport emergencies generally come under the remit of the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport. If it is an aircraft incident, a train crash, a road traffic incident or whatever the nature of the event, the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport will be the lead Department. They will convene an NECG.

We have a significant degree of liaison with our colleagues in the Irish Coast Guard in respect of maritime affairs. We have a framework for major emergency management and they have a framework for search and rescue response at sea. We have a protocol for the interface between the two because if a ship is coming close to shore, and that might involve pollution or rescuing lives, similar to the incident in Norway just a few weeks ago where hundreds of passengers on a cruise ship had to be evacuated. I could not talk about maritime emergencies per se because we are not the lead Department but I know that in the event of an incident, we would move in to support the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport in the way it supports us currently if there is snow and a storm and the airports, rail or bus services are disrupted.

We do a lot of work with our colleagues in the Coast Guard . Our national steering group on major emergency management in the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport and the Coast Guard are part of that group. We do a lot of "preparedness work" there. While members tend to see the high-profile NECG, I would characterise the past decade as a decade of significant background work with people working together. That is the secret. People know each other. Ireland is a good size of a country and we know our colleagues in the Coast Guard very well. We work with them. They understand our system and we understand their system, which is governed by international practice. They would under International Maritime Organization rules. We have to understand that. I am sorry that I cannot give Senator Boyhan more detail on their system, but that is how we interface with that system. I expect that the very same system would be used in a maritime transport accident.

I will now respond to the question on homelessness and severe weather events. I am particularly proud that as a Department we have a particular focus on this issue. I look back at the work that was done in the run up to Storm Emma and during the week from 26 February. We had put out the word that the storm was going to be bad and the homeless would be among the priorities of the Department. With the organisations work on the ground, significant work was done. An additional 100 people who would never normally come in and avail of shelter were successfully persuaded to come in and engage with the health service. Their medical needs were attended to. However, some ten or 12 people stayed out and as members will be aware, their circumstances are complex. They chose not to come in and to their credit the services checked on them on an hourly basis. I was pleased with the way we as a society responded and how the Department, the local authorities and the voluntary sector acted in these circumstances. I instance Storm Emma because we know the figures. More than 100 people who had not engaged with the services for a long time were successfully engaged. I cannot tell members what happened subsequently but it was a success and it was a case of transforming what could have been a disaster into an opportunity to engage with homeless people.