merrion street

The Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Eamon Gilmore T.D., has expressed his sympathy to the Government and people of Turkey following this morning’s devastating earthquake in Van and offered Ireland’s assistance to the relief operation.

The Tánaiste has placed members of the Irish Aid Rapid Response Corps on standby to deploy to the region to assist humanitarian agencies responding to the earthquake. He has also offered emergency supplies from Irish Aid’s humanitarian stockpiles in Brindisi, Italy, and Dubai.

The Tánaiste said:

It is imperative that the humanitarian response operation be rapid and effective to keep the death toll to an absolute minimum,

While Turkey has enormous experience in responding to crises of this nature, I have asked officials in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to assess how Ireland can contribute to the relief effort.

In particular we are ready to deploy members of the Irish Aid Rapid Response Corps to Turkey to work with agencies engaged in the operation. We are also prepared to carry out an airlift of emergency supplies from our stockpiles.