SADLY, THE late Labour Party leader Michael O'Leary did not write memoirs before his untimely death. We do not, therefore, have a first-hand account from the person who was in political charge of the country when we last experienced weather conditions approaching the severity of those currently being witnessed, writes NOEL WHELAN
In early January 1982, snow and freezing conditions also brought Ireland to a standstill. More than 20cm of snow fell over two days, with drifts in excess of 1.5 metres in some areas. The then taoiseach Garret FitzGerald was on a short holiday in the Canaries, and in his absence O’Leary, as tánaiste and minister for the environment, was responsible for the political response to the snow crisis.
In his own, relatively lengthy, memoirs, FitzGerald devotes a page to the January 1982 weather crisis and tells how having heard about the snow storm back home he rang O’Leary, who confirmed that the situation was critical and nothing was moving.
At that time there was no standing mechanism for addressing emergency situations, but on FitzGerald’s suggestion O’Leary established an emergency co-ordination committee to synchronise measures to meet the crisis. Interestingly, FitzGerald then decided to cut short his holiday and make his way back to Dublin.
FitzGerald points out that far from receiving any public gratitude for his efforts to co-ordinate the response to the crisis, O’Leary’s role as crisis co-ordinator brought down on his head what Fitzgerald called the “unreasoning resentment of a public that seemed to have lost any appetite for self-help in a crisis of this kind”. FitzGerald comments that the public expectation seemed to be that “the government would arrive at once to clear not only the road but also the paths to their houses and the front steps as well”.
Today, the level of public expectation is even greater than it was in 1982. However, the civil authorities do have a responsibility to prepare for and respond to severe and adverse weather conditions.
Even allowing for increasingly sophisticated meteorological forecasting, there are still significant limitations to predicting or preparing for adverse weather conditions and when they are severe and prolonged, there are limitations to the extent to which the authorities can respond.
While the current level of snowfall is not as heavy as 1982, sub-zero temperatures are a problem because they allow for no natural thaw and no real prospect of clearing sheets of ice from the roads. That said, given the scale of the economic and social consequences now involved and the likely duration of this weather crisis, a more significant response at the highest levels of politics and public administration is required.
The emergency co-ordination mechanism should have been activated at least a week earlier. It is not clear why it took so long to identify Environment and Local Government as the co-ordinating department. That was obviously the case in 1982, and since most of the alleviation work needed falls to local authorities, it should have been obvious this time also.
Not only has the Government been slow in its administrative response, it has also been behind the curve in failing to communicate a sense of urgency and of management. A government’s function in this crisis is not just to co-ordinate the response of local authorities and agencies, but also to lead on the public information function. Since Christmas there should have been an identifiable Minister out front playing a Giuliani-like role as the nation’s mayor. What is needed is someone combining the roles of national co-ordinator in chief, national weatherman, national traffic warden and maybe even national counsellor.
This senior politician should be a near constant presence in the media, setting out the extent of the weather difficulties across the country and the best information on how long it will last and how much worse it could get. He or she should be setting out what has been done, what is being done and, where relevant, what cannot be done – and why. They should repeat over and over what local authorities, community organisations and individuals should be doing.
Other Ministers and senior officials should simultaneously be working flat out to ensure that the local authorities supported by the relevant agencies are doing everything possible to alleviate the situation. The failure to lead the public information function has left a vacuum filled by too many disparate voices. In addition to different political voices, a whole plethora of local authority and agency officials have emerged to talk about their individual responsibilities. Many of them have done so competently, but sometimes with contradicting views. The general sense has been one of diffused actions.
There is a sense that what is being conducted is a blame game, rather than a co-ordination of response.
Identifiable figures are required in each local authority area: the county or city manager is the obvious person to go out front and be seen to lead the activities of all State agencies in their region.
If he or she is not a strong communicator, then another senior official should play the communications role.
In 1982 the crisis was alleviated by a thaw. Ultimately, it will take a thaw to alleviate our current crisis. In the meantime, the Government must do, and must be seen to do, more.