Emergency Planners Meet At City Hall

An 'emergency' meeting today in Belfast is all the more relevant as global disasters are still very much in focus.

With scenes of destruction in Haiti and Chile - and on the holiday island of Madeira - fresh in the international community's mind, today's meeting of the NI Branch of Emergency Planning Society is an important event.

Focused on Belfast City Hall's high-tech Emergency Co-ordination Centre, the Emergency Planning Society (EPS) - which represents 2,250 members mainly in the UK and Ireland - is meeting to plan for the unthinkable.

Current membership spans the whole spectrum of practice within the field of emergency management and civil protection.

Welcoming the visitors, Lord Mayor Councillor Naomi Long said: "It is vital that the citizens of Belfast - and indeed other parts of Northern Ireland - who live with similar risks to other parts of the UK are offered the same level of protection and response during major emergencies.

"The City Hall Emergency Centre will provide a facility for all agencies to work together in a more 'joined-up' way," she said.

The new Centre comprises a suite of offices which can be used by all of the agencies involved across the city in response to an emergency.

Facilities include computers, plasma screens, telecommunications/radio equipment, RAYNET (radio amateurs emergency network) and office space where officials from various agencies can communicate face-to-face while maintaining contact with their own organisations.

This facility is the first of its kind and scale in Northern Ireland and is similar to those used by local authorities in the rest of the UK and the United States.

The EPS is a company limited by guarantee, managed by a board of directors elected annually and comprises of 14 branches throughout the UK and the Republic of Ireland.

Its Northern Ireland branch represents 92 members placed strategically throughout Northern Ireland Civil Service, government agencies, emergency services, local government, the ICT and financial sectors, voluntary agencies and the NI business community.

By 2012 the EPS aims to achieve Institute status which will enhance its reputation as an internationally recognised professional body, advocating and advising on emergency management and civil protection policies and practice at all levels.

(BMcC/GK)