Brian O'Shea (Waterford, Labour)
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Question 192: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government his views on whether the fire service here has the resources, personnel, training and emergency planning to deal with a blaze of the magnitude of that at the fuel depot in Herefordshire in the UK in December 2005. [5309/06]

Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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The provision of a fire service is a statutory function of the individual fire authorities and my Department has no direct role in this matter. Each local authority has a major emergency plan for dealing with major incidents and such plans take account of particular potentially hazardous facilities within the functional area concerned. Major emergency plans are reviewed on a regular basis and exercises are carried out, including joint exercises with the Garda and the Health Service Executive, to test the plans.

An interdepartmental committee chaired by my Department has just completed a review of the major emergency planning framework on which the local authority, Health Service Executive and Garda Síochána major emergency plans are based. I intend shortly to promulgate and implement the updated framework which will place particular emphasis on the co-ordination of response to major incidents.