A major exercise of the National Radiological Emergency Plan took place on Sunday 10th November 2001. The Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland co-ordinated the exercise which involved agencies throughout the state. The scenario involved a major release of radioactive material from a fictional nuclear facility in Wales.

Laois Civil Defence conducted a full scale exercise of the Laois plan from 1200hrs on the same day. Command and control was conducted from the County Control centre in County Hall, a public information centre was established, 2 mobile monitoring teams were sent out to measure gamma radiation dose rates throughout the county, a static monitoring station was established in Portlaoise and an environmental sampling team was activated. A welfare team provided refreshments to participating personnel from the kitchen in the control centre.

Observers from the County Council, Fire Service and Order of Malta were present at various stages during the day.

All readings taken on the day were well within the "background" threshold of the instruments used and were taken within a period of less than three hours. The actual values averaged out at ~ 0.1µGy/hr. This correlates with the normal national average of 68-120 nSv/hr.

(1µGy/hr = 1000nSv/hr when measuring Gamma radiation.)

N.B The readings shown on the plots below were "artificially enhanced" to make the exercise more challenging. This took the form of multiplying some of the actual values by a factor of 1,2,3 or 4.

Collating and plotting information received. The red and green points on the map on the wall represent the location of the two mobile monitoring teams at that time.

Communications Room.

An MS Excel chart of the "exercise-enhanced" readings of Gamma Ray dose rates in by the static monitoring team. The readings are in units of µGy/hr.

An isoline plot of the "exercise-enhanced" Gamma Ray dose rate readings taken by the two mobile monitoring teams. The readings are in units of µGy/hr .

A 3-D plot of the same information.