Background of The First Annual Forum on Public Safety 2005

The First Annual Forum on Public Safety, held in Ireland on August 3, 2005, and chaired by Declan J. Ganley, Chairman Rivada Networks, brought together political and military leaders, senior police officers, policymakers, business people and scholars from the U.S., Europe and Canada to assess the policy, implementation and communications challenges for improving awareness, prevention, protection, response and recovery measures in connection with natural and/or manmade emergencies.

Several major speeches were given at the morning and afternoon plenary sessions (see Section 2 of this Report) by leaders such as Senator Mary Landrieu; first Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security, Admiral James Loy; 8th District Coast Guard Commander, Admiral Robert Duncan; former Canadian Prime Minister, Kim Campbell and others.

The Forum attendees participated as panelists in eight working groups that focused on key issues of public safety preparedness:

Group 1: North America and Europe: Enhancing information exchange

Group 2: Emergency Cooperation between the Civil and Military Power: Where can we improve current best practices?

Group 3: Policymakers and Legislators: What are we doing to improve public safety in Europe and North America? What should we do to make it even better?

Group 4: Crisis Management: An exchange of ideas about standard means to manage a crisis regardless of manmade or act of God

Group 5: Exercise Planning: Idea exchange on lessons learned from exercises to date and recommended next steps

Group 6: Natural And Manmade Disasters: How can we improve resources?

Group 7: Radicalization: Idea exchange on how we learn what makes the terrorist tick, and what influences the young idealist on the fence to go “radical”. Further, what options do we give him or her to encourage them to make the
right decision?

Group 8: Improving Real-Time Communications Interoperability in Europe and North America, and between Europe and North America.

The detailed findings and reccommendations were compiled, published and distributed to nominated governments and legislatures, but are not published publicly, please contact us for more information if required.