Recent years have witnessed some of the most devastating natural and man-made crises to have affected the planet, including the South-East Asian Tsunami, the Pakistan Earthquake and the ongoing problems in Darfur. And while the ongoing work of government agencies and NGOs is critical for the rebuilding processes, it will be the ability to react quickly that could be a defining factor in the impact of future global disasters.

It is in this climate that the Irish Government is putting in place its Rapid Response Initiative (RRI), responding to the UN's "Humanitarian Response Review". Already much work has been done in terms of stocks, and, in addition to our ongoing partnerships with the UN's World Food Programme's Humanitarian Response Depot (HRD), under the RRI, Ireland will have pre-positioned humanitarian supplies at the Curragh and the UNHRD in Brindisi, Italy. But the next phase of the RRI is arguably more ambitious - the prepositioning of a select number of people with requisite skills in the form of a Rapid Response Corps.

Despite being couched in military terminology (and using military know-how in terms of deployment and logistics), this Rapid Response Corps is a humanitarian effort aimed at ensuring that highly skilled people can be deployed where they are most needed at very short notice. Essentially, Irish Aid's three UN partnership agencies - the WFP, the UNHCR (High Commission for Refugees) and OCHA (Office for the co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs - will be able to immediately draw on the expertise of the Rapid Response Corps, especially in areas where their own expertise is deemed to be weaker.

"Ireland has been excellent in emergency situations at responding in a rapid fashion with cash resources, " said Conor Lenihan TD, Minister of State for Irish Aid. "But we realised that we needed to enhance this response. There was an appetite among the public to see Irish people and Irish expertise deployed complementary to the government's financial response and the NGO response. Increasingly, there are the skills in Ireland which weren't there before, and the Rapid Response Corps is pitched at the high-skill levels, not at the middle skill levels. We are trying to match into three distinct UN agencies where there are obvious skills gaps that they want plugged."

While the roster of places on the Rapid Response Corps is limited to 50, the sorts of skills required might surprise some people, who would have assumed that places were only for engineering and medical professionals. Thus, there are requirements for professional in as diverse fields as logistics, IT and journalism.

What is definitely required is a degree of flexibility and dedication, because of the possibility of deployment within 72 hours notice, for assignments of up to three months. And it is not simply a personal undertaking - in many cases, employers must also be willing to allow one of their professionals to leave for an extended period.

"We have found that the private sector is interested in what we are doing from two points of view, " said Minister Lenihan. "The first is the corporate social responsibility aspect. But secondly, a very practical motivation is that they feel that their staff in these areas can learn and enhance their own capacity by exposure to this type of activity on an international level."

Indeed, it will be a serious business for those chosen to be part of this new Corps.

Training will be key to the success, with this training coming from Irish Aid, UN and military sources.

"We are not talking about gifted amateurs, " said Minister Lenihan. "The people in the corps will be highly qualified, highly trained, and they will know what they are facing into."