 Good afternoon. Today's briefing will be provided to you by representatives from Dundigal Fire Service, the National Ambulance Service, and on Garda Shea Kona. First I want to acknowledge representatives from other states and voluntary services who have provided invaluable support over the last 24 hours, including the Irish Coast Guard, the Coast Guard Rescue Helicopter 118, Irish Air Force Medevac 112, Northern Ireland Ambulance HEM Service, Irish Community Air Ambulance, Northern Ireland Urban Search and Rescue, MIVA Fire Service, Dundigal Mountain Rescue, Northern Ireland Ambulance Service Heart Team, Dundigal County Council's Civil Defence, and most importantly, the Community Increase Lock. Yesterday, Friday the 8th of October, at approximately 3.20pm, an explosion occurred at a building complex in Crease Lock County, Dundigal. I can now confirm there are 10 fatalities as a result of that explosion. The emergency services continue a search and recovery operation at the site this afternoon, but based on the information available to on Garda Shea Kona, at this time it is not expected that there will be any further casualties located and there are no outstanding reports of unaccounted first persons. The 10 casualties are four men, three women, two teenagers, a boy and a girl, and a younger girl. The thoughts of all the emergency service personnel who have attended the scene over the last 24 hours, the local community in Crease Lock and the nation are today with the deceased and their families. In respect for the deceased, I now ask for a short silent pause in their memory. I will now ask Gary Martin, Director of the Emergency Services at Dundigal County Council, to provide a briefing on the ongoing local authority and fire service response. Good afternoon, everyone. I want to confirm that Dundigal County Council fire service mobilised six brigade areas yesterday afternoon in the Crease Lock, including 65 fire service personnel. In addition to that, we deployed 20 Dundigal County Council civil defence personnel, a structural engineer, and to facilitate the fending off of the area road service personnel. I want to acknowledge the assistance from our colleagues in the Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service who attended with specialist equipment and search dogs. I also want to acknowledge the huge input from the local community who attended in huge numbers from yesterday afternoon in Crease Lock and who contributed so much to our efforts there. Our primary focus yesterday was to lead on the search and recovery of the injured and to stabilise what was a substantially damaged building, including many displaced and broken concrete slabs. Over the course of last night and following a detailed analysis of the site by our crews, aided by search dogs and cameras and listening equipment, the incident moved into a search and recovery phase. We will remain on site in an ongoing search and check phase to ensure that there are no remaining casualties in the building. I would like to acknowledge the cooperation of everyone involved as we went about our work yesterday and today, and in particular our major emergency management colleagues and the primary response agencies of the GARDI and the HSE. Finally, and on behalf of the council, as members and staff, I want to pass on our sincere condolences to the families and friends of the victims of this terrible tragedy. Thank you. Thank you, Gary. Now going to ask JJ McGowan, Chief Ambulance Officer for the Western Region of the National Ambulance Service, to provide a briefing on the National Ambulance Service response to this incident. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. On behalf of the HSE and the National Ambulance Service, I wish to express our deepest sympathies in relation to this terrible tragedy that has unfolded increasingly yesterday. Your staff, including those in the hospital and community health, words cannot describe your efforts, each and every one of you have gone above and beyond in your response. A special word of thanks also goes to those who have provided medical assistance to us. These include what are not limited to Northern Ireland Ambulance Service and their heart team and their aeromedical services. The Irish community Air Ambulance, Brown Cruise, the Coast Guard Rescue One-One-Eat helicopter and the Litterkinny University Hospital forward surgical team. A special word of thanks also goes to Dr. Jerry Lane, who assisted on behalf of the Irish community Air Ambulance. We will continue our efforts to work with our colleagues in the Guardian, the Fire Service and until all recovery efforts have concluded. Yesterday, we transported eight patients from the scene, one of whom was critical and further transported to the hospital in Dublin. Seven of the patients transported at this time remain in a stable condition. The National Ambulance Service allocated a total of eight emergency ambulance yesterday and three this morning. We also dispatched two intermediate care or patient transport vehicles, four doctors and four ambulance offices. We currently have two emergency ambulances, two ambulance officers and one doctor on the scene. Our thoughts remain with the bereaved victims, those injured, fellow responders, the community and all those who have contributed to their rescue efforts. Twelve men today, counseling and further services have been put in place by the HSE at Priestley Community Day Care Centre. Thank you. Thank you, JJ. I'm now going to ask Superintendent David Kelly of Milford Guarder Station to provide a briefing on Guarder Shea Connor's response and what the next steps in the investigation of this incident will be. Good afternoon. From the set, thank you for coming here today. Yesterday afternoon, I went to a meeting in Falkara, actually driving by the location where this happened. Little did I think I'd be standing before you here today. This is a tragedy for our community. There's families left devastated. And I suppose I just want to start off by offering to have myself and my colleagues that attended the scene yesterday and indeed are continuing to do so, are very sincere condolences. You've heard from my colleagues from two other services. Initially the fire service booked the lead in this operation and they still do. We assisted them from a broader perspective in terms of attending the scene, securing the scene, making it a safe place for themselves to work and their personnel and indeed the HSE ambulance personnel. You've heard from my colleagues as well, there was great assistance given throughout, if you like, the relevant emergency services and disjurisdiction. We also received great help from our colleagues in Northern Ireland. That's what it is to be in Donegal. We look out for each other. I'd just like to say as well, give me a bit of emotion because you're dealing with the public, you know, I would say in terms of what we did, I outlined that we worked with the other services at this point in time, we have to keep an open mind as a police service and how we investigate this. But at this, our information at this point in time is pointing towards a tragic accident. That said, being a guard, I have to take a holistic and overall viewpoint. That's where we're going at the moment. We are working in consultation, as I say, with the coroner. In that regard, we've put family liaison officers in place with the families after deceased. We're also working with the HSE in terms of the local community as well, in terms of offering, if you like, psychological safety to the families and the wider community in that regard. I suppose in terms of my own colleagues, and I know my colleagues here with the fire service and the ambulance service, we have to thank the people from our own service that did attend. And again, the necessary resources have been put in place in that regard. Just like if you guard a response, as you can imagine, the call comes in. We're directed by our north regional Western Troll Centre, which is based in Galway. Resources were initially deployed from the Milford Guarded District here. I assisted by members that were off duty. I'm proud to say I didn't have to ask for people to call out for duty that came in. We were assisted by members from Leather Kenney, Valley Shannon, Von Cranagh. Currently, we're working with the Guard and National Technical Bureau and they're giving us assistance. We've especially as students within Donegal, I'm not going to name them. Suffice to say, any resource, like my colleagues have said, that is required. We are putting them in place and we are using them. I hope I've answered most of your questions. If not, I'm sure the email my colleagues can help afterwards. Thank you for your time. We're looking at that at the moment. We are following certain, if you like, investigative angles, but at this point in time, for operational reasons, I'm not going to go into that please. I can answer that, but I'll just ask my colleague from. Thank you. We transported eight patients to hospital yesterday, one of which is in critical condition, and we further transported that by air to hospital in Dublin yesterday evening, to the Borden unit. Off the other seven, at this time, we believe they remain in a stable condition and have not life-threatening injuries. We're not going to go into this one at the end of the night. Again, this time, it's not even 24 hours since this happened. As my colleagues, and Kelly said, we have family liaison officers dealing with very, very traumatised families at this time. So we're not going into any personal details of the families or the individuals involved just for the moment. My understanding is everybody involved are local to the North and Eagle or the Kreysloch area. Yes. Don't have that specific information at this time. Again, members from our technical reviewer are attending the site. We are able to carry out some investigations, but at the moment, the priority still remains. The searcher decided to ensure there is absolutely no other casualties, but we're quite satisfied that not at the moment, but that investigation by the technical reviewer will go on over the next number of days. So over the next number of days, it will be taken, the time will be taken to ensure that this is investigated fully, determine any of the causes of what is caused as tragic accidents. The younger child is a girl. Despite in time, as we've done and Kelly has said, all the indications are that it is a tragic accident. However, the investigation will determine the exact nature of the cause, but at this moment in time, it would appear to be a tragic accident. Again, we have to determine the exact cause of the accident before we can start going down the route of identifying any particular problem. So at the moment, and that will follow as we identify more issues in relation to this cause of the accident. My understanding emerges around the scene within less than 10 minutes. Unfortunately, I wasn't there myself and I don't think any of my three colleagues are necessarily there themselves, but I know talking both to my own colleagues in the garage in Chicona and I know JJ and Gary talking to their colleagues. It was a very, very traumatic scene that people came across. It was a very, very confusing as you can imagine. There was a lot of debris. There was a lot of very, very traumatized people already at the scene. So our colleagues definitely will all be provided with their own counseling services by our own agencies to try and deal with what was a very, very tragic circumstances that they arrived at this time yesterday afternoon. This is probably one of the largest civilian casualties in recent times that any of our services have probably dealt with. And certainly, certainly one of the largest civilian casualties in this region, certainly over recent years or decades. The search and recovery company is still ongoing to be 100% sure that the search site is here, but any person that was reported to us as being unaccounted for, we can now account for, but obviously we just need to make sure that there is nobody else out there that we're not aware of. So that search and recovery operation will continue for the next few hours and then it will become a garage gone. It will then take the lead. The investigation will take its course over the next few days. Obviously post-mortems will need to be carried out on the bodies of all the deceased and working with the coroner and the state pathologist service on that. That would take place over the next few days. My understanding is that 10 fatalities were all fatalities at the scene. All the bodies have been removed at this stage. My understanding is that they've all been removed to Lether-Kennie University Hospital at this stage. The response of the local community has been overwhelming. They were dealing in a situation in their village, in their local people, their neighbours. They turned out in great numbers and gave great assistance to the emergency services and it's remarkable and admirable as to how they reacted. That will be eventually for the state pathologist office to determine and obviously there are 10 post-mortems to be done so we will work closely with them as to how that needs process needs to happen. That will be for the state pathologist office or the coroner's office to determine. Okay, again we'll hopefully maybe try to make some sort of a short update later on today but again again we'll just wait and see as things plan out over the next few hours. Okay, thank you very much.