Mr. Seán Hogan:

I fully concur. The question on who may call a road closure is very interesting.

That is a very interesting question on which I am sure officials in the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport could advise much more than I can. I have great sympathy for the Deputy on the issue of tourists and those who do foolish things to draw attention to themselves during weather emergencies. It is galling for people who work in the emergency services, especially those in the voluntary services. From working with Mountain Rescue Ireland, we learned more about how to do co-ordination as opposed to command and control. My experience of working with Mountain Rescue Ireland over the years when we were developing our framework for major emergency management was a classic lesson in how one cannot impose on groups. It is awful to see how the services provided by people volunteering to go out and do rescue work are being abused. This also applies in the case of people who do foolish things and expect emergency services to assist when they get into difficulty. A judgment has to be made on the response and rescue. These are not situations that should arise but, unfortunately, there is always a handful of people who do these kinds of things. We regret that. I am very familiar with the point the Deputy makes regarding snow tourists who want to test out four-wheel drive vehicles.