However, the Office of Emergency Planning (OEP) . . . which operates within the Department of Defence . . . also found that Irish people are more concerned about a natural disaster, such as a large-scale flood, than they are about an explosion in the Sellafield nuclear plant or a terrorist attack.

"As a concern, Sellafield and terrorism are there, but they are well down the list, which was headed by more realistic or likely disasters such as flooding, " an OEP official told the Sunday Tribune. "People feel isolated from such threats and there is an element of 'it can't happen to me'."

O'Dea commissioned the research to find out exactly what people know about the government's emergency plans . . . and what additional information they would like to know . . . before he embarked on a national emergency awareness campaign.

And judging from the results of the research, which comprised a survey and follow-up focus groups, there is a considerable gap in the public's knowledge about what to do should the country be struck by a disaster, natural or unnatural.

"Most people knew very little about the government's emergency plans, " said the OEP official, who was careful to point out that people don't necessarily want to know the full details of any such plans. Instead, it emerged from the focus groups that "people just want reassurance that what needed to be done was being done", he said.

The research also revealed that people don't have a great ability to retain the information received in any case, he added. In late 2001, the Department of the Environment produced a booklet on what people should do in the event of a nuclear accident, and delivered it to every home in the country. "Not one person in the focus groups remembered even receiving the booklet, let alone any of the information contained in it, " he said.

The 2001 booklet has been updated every year since, but is now issued to libraries and Citizen Information Bureaus and is no longer delivered to homes.

"The experience from our counterparts in the UK who launched a similar national emergency information awareness campaign a few years ago is not to overload people with information" said the official.

"You also don't want to raise fears unduly.

People tend to say, 'Why are they telling me now? Do they know something that I don't know?' But at the same time, people have to know the basic facts of what to do in a national emergency."

When people were asked by which medium they would prefer to access information in a national emergency, the OEP was again surprised to find that the internet was well down the list.

"The department was examining the possibility of devising a special website to relay information to the public, " said the OEP official. "But the people in the focus groups said they would be more likely to look for such information from the TV, radio and newspapers. The office is still likely to set up a special website, but the emphasis will now be on channelling information through TV, radios and newspapers."

The official added that the new campaign . . .

which will be launched late this year or early in 2007 . . . will contain only as much information as the research suggests people can take at any one time.

"By its nature, a national emergency will change so any information will be updated as circumstances dictate."

DOOMSDAY SCENARIO:

WHAT TO DO, '60 SSTYLE IN THE 1960s, at the height of the cold war, the government sent a booklet to every Irish household, telling them what to do in the event of a nuclear war.

Entitled 'Survival in a Nuclear War', the 55page booklet has gone down in folklore in the Department of Defence, which plans to launch a more updated version in the coming months.

Instructions included:

>> Stay indoors >> Shut all windows and outside doors >> Bring your car under cover so that it will not be covered with radioactive dust afterwards >> During the first 24 hours, the sanitation problem must be solved within the refuse room. A covered bin or bucket or chemical closet is recommended. Rig up a screen around it. After the first day of fallout, BRIEF visits to indoors WC are permissible.

>> After two days, you may be able to venture out. But wear gloves and wipe the table and shelves in the kitchen with a damp cloth. Dispose of the cloth . . . it may have become contaminated.

>> People away from home and caught in the open by the FINAL WARNING will have to appeal to the nearest householder for shelter. Householders should help such people and allow for this in their preparations. Yellow flags hung along roads will indicate FINAL WARNING to motorists and other road users.

>> In order to prevent the heat flash entering your house and starting fires:

- keep venetian blinds and shutters closed - use heavy curtains - fix blankets across windows - whitewash windows - flimsy curtains should be taken down from windows. The heat flash could set them on fire.