"Snow and adolescence are the only problems that disappear if you ignore them long enough.”

The last week and a half of inclement weather has brought this country to a standstill and has according to some reports cost the economy somewhere between €60 - €100 million a day in lost business, increased costs and staff absences.

It is a widely accepted principal of crisis management that leadership combined with accurate and timely communication is key to managing the crisis and keeping the public informed of developments and advising them on actions to take to protect themselves, their property and to minimize disruption as much as possible. This last week and a half has shown us our government's in ability to effectively take decisions, follow through on them and communicate effectively in a time of national crisis.

The moment Brian Cowen abjected all responsibility for the management of this crisis we got two very clear signals from Government, firstly they didn't think it was that important for the Taoiseach to personally manage the crisis and second that if things went 'belly up', that it would be more politically palatable to have John Gormley and the Greens take the rap for it.

From the moment Gormley was placed in charge of the governments response despite trying he failed completely in trying to reassure people that the government was in control of the situation and was taking all steps to deal with the situation. He openly admitted to not knowing the where abouts of the Minister for Transport, Noel Dempsey. Gormely was completely inept on Prime Time in trying to reassure people that we were doing everything that had to be done and came very close to an adolescent outburst at the new title  'Minister for Snow' being awarded to him by Miriam O' Callaghan.

Simultaneously, we have Batt O' Keefe the Minister for Education who ordered the closure of all schools next week until Thursday at the earliest, who's own departmental press office started back peddling the statement within 10 minutes him issuing this order. His press office insisted that it was advice only and that the power to make the decision rested with school management. At the same time Séan Hogan, the Senior Civil servant who Chairs the National Emergency Management Committee was unawares that the committee he chairs had taken the decision to close all of the schools. This clear breakdown in communication should not have happened under any circumstances, in a crisis such as this communication is vital!

Local Authorities & the National Emergency Response Committee failed to understand the idea of emergency management, that places at its core that all available resources are centralized and focused to the area of most need, what the last week has shown us is that each section of government is more concerned with protecting its own little corner rather than contributing the common good. For two days no one taught it would be prudent for Local Authorities to have their salt and grit supplies nationalized and distributed centrally to manage dwindling stocks, instead it was each to its own with more failures of leadership and coordination.

This point brings me to the whereabouts of Minister Dempsey, while I will agree that every individual is entitled to take some time off from work to relax, when the shit hits the fan you get back to the job at hand you don't throw a tantrum at the fact your needed at home. (John McGuirk has a great post on this here) The National Roads Authority a government agency under the aegis of the Dept. of Transport was in charge of our salt and grit suppliers therefore the Minister is responsible for them and should of been managing their efforts.

The Defense Forces were mobilized on Thursday by Willie O' Dea, or rather they weren't mobilized, they were placed on alert to be mobilized should they be needed, it was clear on Tuesday night that local authorities did not have the required number of gritting trucks to cover national primary and secondary roads and the centers of the main cities and towns. They should of been deployed en-mass. If when we require their assistance we aren't going to deploy them in serious numbers to make a difference why do we maintain a force of 10,000 strong. For the small number of troops deployed to deal with the crisis they made an immediate impact that could of been replicated nationwide much earlier and in greater numbers. Regardless of whether they were in a warm barracks drinking tea or out shoveling snow and calling on the elderly and infirm to make sure they were o.k. they were still getting paid.

Our National Emergency Management Committee is supposed to manage emergencies, it is supposed to cut out the red tape so decisions can be made quickly, it has failed at the falling of 6 inches of snow over 10 days, all I can say is I hope Sellafield never has a problem as we would all be doomed to die. This crisis can be summed by the quote from Earl Wilson that is its title, "Snow and adolescence are the only problems that disappear if you ignore them long enough.” Unfortunately we can't ignore the adolescence of our political leaders any longer as the problem will never disappear.