In answer to Deputy Sargent's question on general security regarding drugs and stolen products, there is enormous cross-over of intelligence inside and outside the country between the Garda and customs agencies. Europol and Eurojust track the movement of drugs, sometimes successfully, sometimes not so successfully. Regarding rings involved in car theft and other issues there is very close co-operation. I presume the Deputy is referring to a number of major investigations currently under way and there is a two-way trade on these issues.
Shortly after the events of 11 September 2001, the Government set up the Office of Emergency Planning to co-ordinate the work of the various emergency agencies in preparing contingency plans. The Task Force on Emergency Planning which is chaired by the Minister for Defence meets frequently to discuss these issues, which include issues of airspace.
In the event of a major disaster the level of expertise and infrastructure that would be required is far greater than we would have. Other European countries would always assist, if requested, in the event of a tragedy in what would be considered to be crisis management relationships. The possibility of requesting assistance or aid is available to us under present arrangements. As we have seen, a number of far more sophisticated and larger countries than ours do not have these capacities. If a major incident occurred we would have to seek assistance. Such an atrocity happened some years ago involving an Air India aeroplane off the Cork coast and we were assisted from outside. The level of co-operation between the Task Force on Emergency Planning and Europol and Eurojust is at an all-time high, as is the number of people involved in justice and home affairs issues compared to a few years ago when it was not a big issue. Today it is by far the biggest issue on the European agenda, given the astronomical extent of resources being put into emergency planning and emergency frameworks.