Noel Dempsey (Meath West, Fianna Fail)

As I said, that is part of the review process. Following the incident this time last year, I had meetings with the IFA in regard to the possibility of enlisting its aid. While it has welcomed that, we need to move that process forward. The question of guidelines and plans is under review and, while there is a plan, it needs to be updated and improved.

To be fair, if one considers what happened across the water and across Europe in similar circumstances, I believe we in this country did much better in dealing with this issue from a transport point of view than any of the other countries. We can be very proud of that because we very often spend our time knocking what has happened, although I know nobody present has knocked the efforts made by the front line staff. Overall, our response was much better than in other places and was much improved. Again, I accept the point we can always improve more.

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