There have been calls to set up a new state body for responding to national emergencies. The organisation would operate like FEMA in the United States and kick into action in the wake of events like Storm Eowyn.
It comes as tens of thousands of households remain without power, & New Ross Councillor Michael Sheehan is making the call.
It would liase with people affected by storm damage to offer them direct supports.
Michael Sheehan thinks there would be enough demand to warrant a standalone agency as recent storms will be repeated in the future, “Well, the idea is that we would have a separate agency that would work with the local authorities and the utilities to make sure that we don’t have a replication of scenes that we’ve had for people or without supplies, without water, without power, and without communications for up to five and six days across the country because of the weather phenomenon. It’s not something that’s going to go away. So I think if we had an agency similar along the lines in FEMA that will go in there and make sure that people have the resources that they need. We seem to be having these one in 200-year storms literally every six months, but there’s always something in terms of either flooding in different parts of the country, and you can have accidents in different parts of the country, you can have incidents that happen critical incidents where people are left without. So there would actually be a need for an agency to be there on standby like FEMA in the United States that if we know there’s a phenomenon, be it something created by the human environment or the natural environment that they literally can rock up there and support people so you don’t have situations where people are on national media saying, I’ve heard nothing in days.”