EMII Breakfast Briefing – The W.H.O emergency medical coordination centre for the GAZA crisis – An Irish Perspective & Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) Presentation

EMII Breakfast Briefing – The W.H.O emergency medical coordination centre for the GAZA crisis – An Irish Perspective & Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) Presentation – 29th November 2024 – 08.30am – DCU Business School.

We are delighted to announce that our next EMII Breakfast Briefing event will take place on Friday 29th November in DCU Business School.

We will have the pleasure of two guest speakers. The first part of the presentation is titled “The W.H.O emergency medical coordination centre for the GAZA crisis – An Irish Perspective” whilst the second part will focus on Disaster Victim Identification (DVI). DVI is the method used to identify victims of mass casualty incidents, either man-made or natural. A major disaster – such as a tsunami, an earthquake or terrorist attack – may result in the death of nationals from many different countries and damage or destroy a country’s emergency-response infrastructure. A coordinated international effort can speed up the recovery and identification of victims, enabling families to begin the healing process and societies to rebuild.

The W.H.O emergency medical coordination centre for the GAZA crisis – An Irish Perspective presentation will be delivered by Mr Gerry Waldron. Gerry served for 16 years in the Irish Defence Forces in a variety of operational and training roles, both at home and in the Middle East. During this time he served as both an infantry officer and later as a healthcare manager before leaving the military to work in the Irish health service. He worked as a non-consultant hospital doctor in Emergency Medicine for a number of years before joining the diplomatic service in 2022. He is currently employed in the political section of the Embassy of Ireland in Great Britain. From 2022 until August 2024 he served as Deputy Director of the Humanitarian Unit in Irish Aid where he had responsibility for Ireland’s humanitarian programmes in Europe and the Asia Pacific region. He holds post graduate qualifications in Healthcare Management and Public Health with degrees in Sports & Exercise Science, Medicine, and Leadership, Management & Military Studies. As part of the Government’s response to the Gaza crisis earlier this year he was seconded through the European Union Civil Protection Mechanism to the WHO Emergency Medical Team Coordination Centre in Cairo. The presentation will cover this secondment and lessons learned from the experience.

The DVI presentation will be delivered by Detective Sergeant Dave O’Leary of An Garda Síóchána who is based within the Ballistics & Forensic Investigation Section of the Garda National Technical Bureau, where he has served for the past 18 years. Dave is primarily a Forensic Ballistics Expert and Crime Scene Manager, and holds an MSc in Firearms Investigation from the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow. He has been a part of the Technical Bureau’s Disaster Victim identification Team since 2015, and the National DVI Coordinator since 2020. Dave has trained in DVI both domestically, under the Garda College, and internationally with CEPOL, INTERPOL, UK-DVI and the Hungarian University of Public Services in all aspects of DVI, up to the Level of DVI Team Commander and has experience of applying the INTERPOL DVI system both at mass fatality incidents in Ireland, and overseas as part of an INTERPOL Incident Response Team. Dave is the Irish National Point of Contact for DVI for INTERPOL, and is a Steering Committee Member of the EU-DVI Network under the Law Enforcement Working Party of the Council of the European Union.

Booking for this event is now open.

Note: Event booking closes on 28/11/2024 at 12-noon.

All members who register to attend either in person or online will receive a Zoom link via [email protected] on the evening of 28th (PM).

All events are free to members, but booking is essential.

Please note: When booking, please include your full name and email address (a phone number is not required).

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If you have any questions about the event, please contact us at: [email protected] 

This event will not be recorded.