asked the Minister for Defence if he will give details of the number of Army personnel who are trained to detonate explosives; if he will give an assurance that there are sufficient trained Army personnel throughout the country in order to alleviate public anxiety in this connection.
Ceisteanna—Questions Oral Answers. - Bomb Disposal Personnel.
176.
For security reasons, the details requested by the Deputy cannot be given. I am satisfied that existing arrangements in this matter are satisfactory.
I realise the Minister is in some difficulty in regard to giving information of this nature to the House but realising that over the past number of weeks there have been some hotels——
Is the Deputy asking a question?
It takes a long time to elaborate this properly and fully, but there have been explosions, and bombs and incendiary devices have been placed in hotels and railway stations in Dublin. Throughout the country, as the Minister is aware, there have also been bomb scares and this applies to the entire country and for this reason I should like the Minister to be able to assure the House that there are in the Army experts in the art of detonating explosives who are situated at different centres such as Athlone and Tralee——
The Deputy may not proceed on this basis.
I note the Deputy's concern but I should point out that up to now the military authorities in the section responsible for bombs and incendiary devices have been fully capable of dealing with any occurences that have arisen.
I should like to ask the Minister——
We have not yet reached the halfway mark although we have been at Questions since 2 p.m.
I do not detain the House much but this is a matter——
I am not blaming the Deputy but I would point out that this question was mainly a statistical one.
In my question I asked the Minister if he would give an assurance that there were sufficient trained Army personnel throughout the country to detonate explosives. The Minister for Defence should be able to give an assurance that there are sufficient men at various centres throughout the country. This is a matter on which the Minister should be able to give an assurance to the Dáil. Are there a sufficient number of people to cope with this problem? I should like such an assurance because otherwise it may happen that this will have to be raised again.
I cannot give the Deputy any such assurance because it depends——
Can the Minister give an assurance that there will be a sufficient number of men stationed throughout the country?
I can give an assurance that that particular corps is well up to strength and that we have an adequate number of ordnance officers.
Will they be deployed throughout the country? I live in the country and the Minister comes from Cork so I am sure he can appreciate that this is an important point.
We must leave that to the judgment of the military authorities.
I hope they will be proved correct.
177.
asked the Minister for Defence if he will state the number of bombs and/or incendiary devices defused by army experts from 1st January 1972 to date.
During the period 1st January to 13th November, 1972, 20 bombs or explosive devices were rendered harmless by Army ordnance officers. Such officers were not called upon to render harmless any incendiary devices during that period.