MaltaMedia.com

Irish Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey, who was on holiday in Malta with his family, has said nothing more could have been done during the weather crisis if he had been back home in Ireland.

As Ireland braces itself for another week of havoc caused by further snow blizzards and freezing ice, the Irish transport minister, speaking to The Sunday Independent by telephone from Malta, has effectively conceded that the Irish Government’s response to the crisis has so far been a shambles.

“It was far from perfect. Lessons will have to be learned,” Noel Dempsey told the Irish paper The Sunday Independent from the airport in Malta, where temperatures hit 20 degrees Celsius last week.

In Dublin, the temperature plunged to minus 12 degrees Celsius two nights ago with people waking up to inches of fresh freezing snow; grit supplies have virtually dwindled to nothing and the country could grind to a standstill later in the week.

On Saturday, Labour Party transport spokesman Tommy Broughan demanded to know: “Where is the transport minister? The transport system is collapsing.”

Irish Environment Minister, John Gormley, made the startling admission that he did not know where the transport minister was. “I believe he is on some vacation, but I don’t know where,” he said.

Mr Dempsey, however, said: “This is the second time I have ever gone away at this time of year. I don’t want to bring my family into this — they are very private — but, you know, I am entitled to have a family life as well.”

Both ministers, Mr Gormley and Mr Dempsey, are ultimately responsible for co-ordinating the Government’s response to the worst weather conditions in Ireland in 40 years.

But Mr Dempsey was on holiday in Malta last week, where he ignored a growing clamour of calls for his return home. “Politically, it’s a lot of hoo-haa, a lot of nonsense,” he said from the airport in Malta, where he was stranded most of Sunday.

Mr Dempsey disclosed that he took a decision last Thursday to cut short his break and return home. However, his 12:30pm flight home, with Ryanair, was cancelled on Saturday due to bad weather at Dublin Airport. The minister spent most of Sunday morning trying to arrange an alternative flight home. He was expecting to fly to Bristol in the UK on Saturday night and on to Dublin on Sunday morning.

Mr Dempsey told The Sunday Independent by telephone: “I was kept informed by my officials on a regular basis as to what was happening.” He said his officials attended meetings of the Emergency Response Committee where they relayed his views and reported back to him.