Are we staring at a disaster that's about to happen? Brian Byrne investigates the hazards of petro-chemical transportation and talks to Chief Fire Officer about what we are doing wrong.
There might be 1,000 petrol tanker trucks travelling Ireland's roads a week. A similar number again may be carrying diesel, LPG or chemicals.
Nobody actually knows how many there are, or what they're carrying. Not even the people who would have to deal with an accident that could happen to one of those vehicles as it negotiates its way around the country.
The companies operating or contracting their haulage of fuel, chemicals or hazardous substances do not tell the fire authorities what is being carried, where and when it is travelling, or in what quantities.
Their excuse: "commercial confidentiality". They claim that the local authorities which operate the fire services are subject to the Freedom of Information Act, and a competitor could find out quantities and content if the information was released to the emergency services.
The one figure up there, 1,000, is a guesstimate based on the number of cars in the country and the rough amount of fuel they use.
And just because there has not been a major disaster in Ireland involving a petrol or a hazardous chemical tanker doesn't mean it cannot happen. There are regular documented incidents in other countries which have cost life and property.
The potential is truly catastrophic. A petrol tanker exploding in the South Main Street of Naas, for instance, would level half that end of town. And could cause many hundreds of casualties on a busy shopping day.
The real nightmare of the State's fire officers is the possibility of an LPG tanker incident. The gas, used in many homes as fuel and stored in individual bulk tanks, has the potential to cause even greater devastation in an accident, with tankers going from house-to-house in many residential estates.
One incident in recent years required the diversion of a Dublin-bound LPG tanker. It was re-routed to a disused quarry near Kilcullen in Co Meath so that firemen could deal with a potential danger. It transpired that the vehicle's pressure tank was overfilled. LPG tanks must never be filled beyond 80 per cent of capacity, because the liquified load expands in even relatively minor increases of ambient temperature. The danger of a serious explosion in these conditions is very high.
The worst incident involving LPG was an explosion in a Spanish town some decades ago, which left several fatalities and burned out scores of vehicles in the traffic around it.
Fire authorities are also concerned about what might be in the many trucks carrying chemicals on our roads, servicing the large chemicals and pharmaceuticals industry here.
For obvious reasons, these firms are very secretive about the ingredients for their products.
There are also numerous tankers with solvents and other industrial by-products being shuttled from plants and factories to ports for treatment abroad. All have the potential for bio- or chemical hazard situations.
And the firemen say that there is no consistent and coherent on-the-road monitoring and inspection of such loads, which ideally should involve the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the gardaí and the fire authorities.
All chemical and fuel transport vehicles must have their loads clearly labelled by an international hazard sign system, but until emergency services get to an incident, they have no knowledge of what they're dealing with.
"Our people are trained to deal with any kind of situation, but because of the lack of information, we treat every incident as worst possible scenario until we know better," says Michael Fitzsimons, Co Kildare's chief fire officer and until recently the chairman of the Association of Chief Fire Officers.
"That can mean sending in firemen in full chemical hazard suits for something that might turn out to be benign."
Kildare is one of the key "corridors of danger" as every road out of the capital except the N1 goes through the county. Dublin's quays are another: until the Port Tunnel is finished, most tankers from the "tank farms" in Dublin's docklands must use the city centre.
The "bible" of the fireman on chemical dangers is the British Home Office Hazchem No 6 directory that lists some 3,000 different chemicals which can be in transit on our roads. The directory gives references to dealing with spills or fires involving the materials.
The fire service is generally satisfied about the competence level of trained tanker drivers, but warn that an incident or a serious accident may not necessarily be the fault of the commercial driver.
"We're very much aware that a car can come shooting out of a side-road and ram straight into a tanker, with serious consequences," says Michael Fitzsimons.