80-tonne Irish aid consignment arrives in Haiti

MORE than 80 tonnes of government aid including blankets, water tanks and tents have arrived in earthquake-ravaged Haiti.

The consignment – one of the largest-ever supplied by the state – will be distributed to aid agencies Concern and Goal to be passed on to more than 8,000 devastated families.

The aid is valued at around a quarter of a million euro.

A convoy of 16 trucks is transporting the vital emergency provisions from the Dominican Republic to the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince.

Overseas Development Minister Peter Power said the supplies were on top of €2 million in financial aid already pledged by the Government for relief.

“It (the supplies) will be distributed by our partners, Concern and Goal, to thousands of families who are so desperately in need of shelter and water. “In addition to blankets, water and sanitation equipment, tents and kitchen sets, the consignment also includes generators which are crucial to the urgent relief effort.”

GOAL chief executive John O’Shea said: ‘Naturally we are delighted to be up and running and we expect that over the coming days and weeks we will expand our operations significantly.’

Concern said it had received donations of €2.6m yesterday while the Irish Red Cross said it had collected around €750,000.

The Government also deployed three members of the Rapid Response Corps to help in the international emergency effort.

These include Donal McGrath, an ICT specialist from Dublin and John Jefferies, an ESB network technician from Cork. Both arrived in Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic last night and will travel to Haiti to work with the World Food Programme.

Capt Tim O’Connor, a Defence Forces’ engineer from Cork, who is a UN-trained disaster expert, has been deployed as part of the small Irish Aid technical team assessing what needs to be done.

Other members of the Rapid Response Corps – a register of highly-skilled individuals willing to be deployed on short notice – are on standby and may be called upon.

There have been 65 deployments to over 20 countries including Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Sudan, DRC, Zimbabwe, Colombia and, now, Haiti.

lJoe Lowry will be on the ground in Haiti today and will act as communications manager for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), ensuring a constant flow of accurate data from towns and villages affected.

Irish Red Cross delegate Will Rogers is also being deployed and will arrive in Port-au-Prince today to manage beneficiary communications. He has previously worked in Indonesia co-ordinating the Irish Red Cross response to the tsunami, and was deployed to the Padang earthquake in Indonesia in October 2009.

Noel Wardick, head of the International Department, Irish Red Cross, explains: “Dispatching our key experts to Haiti is the next step for us in ensuring that the people of Haiti have the support that they need to cope with this disaster. Their priority will be to engage with communities, keep them informed of aid deliveries, and ensure local support for Red Cross efforts.”

Businessman Denis O’Brien yesterday, speaking from Haiti, praised the work of aid workers and relief operations.