The Civil Defence provides training to protect the population in the event of war.
The Dublin City Rescue Service carry out a simulated rescue operation in the event of a bomb attack at Ratra House in the Phoenix Park Dublin.
These are certainly dedicated people who do all their training in their spare time.
Mr J Fay, National Director of Civil Defence, explains what civil defence is all about.
Civil Defence means the efforts being made to organise the population to protect themselves against the effects of war, including particularly nuclear war.
When planning civil defence, order is required. The government has placed the hazard of radioactive fallout as the country's biggest threat. Plans are made under the assumption that nuclear explosions could occur anywhere in the country and the Civil Defence must be prepared to act at short notice. To prepare for such events, the Civil Defence School has been established at the Phoenix Park. People are sent forward for training at the centre by their local authority. Courses are also carried out for An Garda Síochána, the army and other professionals such as water engineers and agricultural inspectors.
Chief Technical Officer at the Civil Defence School, Dr Aubrey Crawford explains how a chain of command operates throughout Ireland. The country is divided into eight regions made up of a number of counties. The counties are then subdivided into sub-counties and each sub-a is divided into districts which are again subdivided into warden post areas. In each of these areas, there are control posts.
You have a chain of command and control running right up.
Wardens in each of the districts use equipment to detect radioactive readings. Technical officer Mr Maher describes the different types of instruments used to detect radioactivity including the individual dosimeter, the different types of survey meters, and a contamination meter. Each of the instruments has different levels of sensitivity for measuring radioactivity.
If people are exposed to too much radiation, it would kill them and these instruments can tell exactly how much radiation is knocking around.
Another technical officer, Mr Dunne, describes some of the equipment required to feed people in the event of an attack where there is a loss of electricity or gas power. These include single and double dustbin ovens, a stockpot boiler and a series of basic cookers for pot boiling. All of these devices are made from debris which can be found following a bomb blast. The mobile feeding units are designed to feed two thousand people every four hours.
If there is a nuclear war, you may not know what to do, I may not know what to do, but at least it's good to know that in this country there are people who can tell us.
An RTÉ News report broadcast on 2 July 1962.
