Carlow County Council, is the Civil Defence Authority for the administrative area of County Carlow. The 2003 Civil Defence Act sets out a number of roles for Civil Defence and these include providing a backup service to the Primary Emergency Services, Community Service, Training in Casualty, Radio Communications, Rescue, Welfare, Fire Fighting and Boating Skills (search and recovery).

Civil Defence also provide`s service to the Local Authority, HSE, and Gardai in the event of severe weather conditions such as flooding and snow.

Nationally since January 2013 The Civil Defence Board has been dissolved and Civil Defence is under the Department of Defence, Civil Defence Branch.

The new Major Emergency Management Framework document also sets out roles and responsibilities for Civil Defence, such as setting up Welfare Centres, Registration of Casualties, responsibility for casual volunteers and Secondary Line back up to the Primary Emergency Services. The members of Civil Defence are all volunteers with the exception of a part-time Civil Defence Officer employed by Carlow County Council. At present we have over 65 volunteer members ranging from locations such as Carlow town, Muinebheag, Borris and Rathanna. Weekly training on subjects such as First Aid to CPR level, First Aid Responder,( FAR), Emergency First Responders, Emergency Medical Technician, Fire Fighting skills, Rescue techniques, Technical Rescue, Search Skills, Welfare etc., are taught and practised. On our training schedule at weekends the subjects taught are exercised and the skills resulting from this are pitched against other counties in competition at various venues.

Also our training at field days are used for searching in open country, AFS fire fighting events, and Search Skills training on land and with boats in the river Barrow and Slaney. The new Civil Defence building is fully operational since September 2009, this is making our operation more efficient and gives a much more effective and quicker response.

2014 also saw new Search Skills Training Course rolled out for our members and taught in the Garda College. Carlow members were one of the first to embrace this activity and we gained status to Instructor level. Since 2015 we also have Search Managers trained in this Field Skills course.

Since mid 2014 we also have Instructor level at Water Awareness and Swift Water Flood First Responder. We also Water and Search Management Training which was carried out in Wales.

Civil Defence Boat units provides back up assistance to the (PRAs) Fire service and Gardai in River Search and Recovery (RSR) situations. Volunteers are trained in Boating skills, River and land search and recovery techniques for back up situations to Gardai. Water awareness and Swift Water Flood Response courses are run throughout the year.

Civil Defence set up a Multi Agency Day and Night Searches on different sections of the River Barrow which included Gardai and Fire Service to test various skills which include River search techniques in hours of darkness, Lighting equipment, Access points to River edge, Control of Boating, Communications, and Body Recovery.

Civil Defence also Assist`s the HSE.

Grants

The Council obtained the following grants from the Department of Defence. Civil Defence Branch.

In 2017 we obtained grant of €10,000 towards the purchase of a New Boat to add to our fleet for severe weather work.

ACTIVITIES COVERED BY CIVIL DEFENCE DURING 2017