Mr. Dennis Keeley:

The framework for emergency management, which has been referenced already, allows for emergencies to be scaled up to either a regional or national emergency. The local authority in whose functional area the incident has happened has a co-ordination function. For example, if the resources of additional Civil Defence units are required in Dublin, the Civil Defence officer in Dublin would take the lead co-ordinating role for the supplementary and additional Civil Defence units that arrive, and vice versaif they need to respond from Dublin to another area. That transcends into the fire service, but also for the Civil Defence. It is a mechanism for saying who is co-ordinating, rather than asking who is in control or who is in charge. That already exists, and is what would happen today in the event of a serious incident requiring co-ordination across multiple units of Civil Defence.