Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

Avian influenza has been dealt with by the Minister for Agriculture and Food, Deputy Coughlan, and the Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Harney. It uses almost the same model as we put in place for the outbreak of foot and mouth disease some years ago, the difference being that there is greater involvement on the part of the Department of Health and Children owing to vaccines and other medical issues. The office of emergency planning is not involved.

To restate the position, the office of emergency planning deals with all issues stemming from the attacks of 11 September 2001, as well as other potential emergencies such as flooding, Sellafield or a climatic disaster. All those issues are being considered afresh owing to all that has happened this year. One hopes that such occurrences will be rare, but one can never be sure. There has been planning because of ongoing issues connected with Sellafield and terrorist attacks. Sellafield is a threat apart from the risk of aeroplanes flying into it. However, there are also security issues, and the office of emergency planning has been working on that, as well as all other potential disasters, examining what kind of equipment we have, planning, Army training and all the other efforts.

The National Security Committee brings together senior people, chaired by the Secretary General of the Department of the Taoiseach, including the Garda. It looks mainly at international intelligence, which is being supplied to a far greater extent than a few years ago. Even a year or two after the attacks of 11 September 2001, there was not a great flow of information, but that has changed.

At European level and internationally, the flow of data into the system regarding various security issues is intense. The group forms a judgment and opinion on how to deal with that. It is no secret that nowadays there are extremely dangerous people from several groups with very wide networks who regularly move around the world. The committee considers that and based on that information and data it picks up internationally, it feeds back to the office of emergency planning and the Government generally its view on anything that it believes should be taken more seriously. Unfortunately, that is more regular now than it would have been even two years ago.

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