Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

The Office of Emergency Planning deals with that, but obviously Departments, in particular, the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, have a major role to play. The National Security Committee discusses any issue or intelligence it receives. If it has information, it passes it on to the relevant sources, but does not as a group meet individuals or governments. The Office of Emergency planning deals with national disasters and preparations to deal with them. The input into that committee comes mainly from the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, which has control over most of the emergency services, for example, the fire and local authority services.

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