Willie O'Dea (Limerick East, Fianna Fail)

No. It has been my practice since becoming Minister to call the emergency planning task force together on at least a monthly basis, which will continue. The next meeting is tomorrow afternoon. No member of the task force said anything that would necessarily alarm me or drew my attention to serious deficiencies.

Each plan is a matter for the relevant lead Department. For example, the public health reaction to some sort of a biological threat or the fallout from biological warfare would be a matter for the Department of Health and Children. In the case of nuclear accident, the lead Department would be the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, which has its plan to deal with such an incident.

With regard to whether there have been proposals for change, I have made such proposals because some aspects of the functioning of the task force could be changed, although this is not in any way to criticise the good work done. However, we must bring the work of the task force into the public domain and let the public know what is happening. This can be achieved by disseminating information in various ways and publicising the simulated exercises in which many of these bodies engage. For example, last year the Garda Síochána and the Army engaged in a number of simulated exercises, as did the Department of Health and Children. In the United Kingdom, when the army, police or any government department become involved in such exercises, there seems to be no barrier to this information coming into the public domain. While there has been a shyness in this regard in this country, we intend to change this. That is my proposal to the task force and I hope to implement it.

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