Irish Aid, the government's official aid programme, will advertise next month to recruit a team of specialists forming a Rapid Response Corps willing to travel to emergency zones within two days of a disaster.

The move is part of Irish Aid's Rapid Response Initiative to maximise impact on disaster zones during the early phase of an emergency.

Successful applicants will agree to be flexible enough to leave Ireland at short notice. They will be deployed to zones hit by disasters such as earthquakes and tsunamis to deliver emergency relief.

Last October the Minister of State for Irish Aid, Conor Lenihan, signed an agreement with the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) to provide funding for a new Emergency Logistics Hub in Ghana capable of delivering emergency airlifts throughout Africa, the first of which last week brought 26 tons of emergency provisions to N'Djamena in Chad. They were delivered to refugee camps, which are filled with Sudanese escaping the conflict in Darfur.