Noel Dempsey (Meath West, Fianna Fail)

I propose to take Question Nos. 54 and 57 together.

The Government's emergency task force, under the auspices of the Department of Defence, is the framework around which national emergency responses are co-ordinated. Under the published emergency planning procedures, the national response to severe weather events is lead by the Department of Environment, Heritage and Local Government. The Department of Transport plays a support role in responding to such events.

The severe weather interdepartmental co-ordination group met daily during the recent severe weather in to co-ordinate the national response and monitor impacts across all sectors countrywide. Following a meeting last Wednesday, the group has already commenced a review of the overall response to the recent event. The review will, among many issues, contemplate transport-related matters, community involvement and salt management issues. It is expected to be largely completed over the next four to six weeks and Government Departments, including mine, will be actively contributing to the review based on their experience in December.

As Minister for Transport, I have responsibility for overall policy and funding for the transport sector. The issues raised by the Deputies fall mainly within the operational responsibilities of the relevant agencies - be it the National Roads Authority, the public transport companies, the Dublin Airport Authority or the local authorities - and I have no direct function in respect of them. Following the 27 days of severe weather which commenced on 28 November 2010, overall transport preparedness was much improved on that of winter 2009-2010. This was due in part to the implementation during 2010 of recommendations from the review by the task force into the earlier event. As part of overall transport preparedness, the NRA launched the draft winter maintenance guidelines in early October 2010. These provided a comprehensive framework for local authorities to plan standard winter maintenance, including a schedule for severe weather. The authorities were requested to select routes in their areas for treatment on a priority 1, 2 and 3 basis, where all three priorities would be regular winter maintenance routes but were there would be a reversion to priority 2 and-or 1 as a severe weather event extended.

The NRA was also tasked with centrally procuring salt supplies. However, it was left open to local authorities to purchase their own supplies directly should they wish to do so. The decision to have the NRA purchase salt on a centralised basis contributed to a stock of 50,000 tonnes being available at the start of this winter, with a further 50,000 scheduled for phased delivery over the period to the end of this month. This compares to 10,000 tonnes at the start of winter 2009. Some €6million was also made available by the NRA for additional dry storage facilities for stocks of de-icing salt and a further €2.5million was made available for grit spreaders, snow blades, etc.for local authorities.

I understand that the CIE companies and Luas implemented pre-agreed operational plans for severe weather and, with the support of the local authorities, managed in extremely difficult conditions. Even with the severity of the weather, our airports managed to provide a high level of service and snow-related closures were kept to a minimum. The larger impacts on air travel to and from Ireland were more associated with weather difficulties at major airports abroad. Within the transport and local authority sectors, the commitment of front-line staff in responding in extremely difficult conditions is to be commended.

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