The majority of Irish people believe the State is not prepared to cope with a serious man-made or natural emergency.
In a survey carried out for the Emergency Planning Task Force, it was found that in the aftermath of the weekend's Dublin riots, seven out of 10 people believe there are not proper plans in place to cope with disasters.
Fine Gael's Billy Timmins said a single emergency planning body must be created through legislation to report to the Government in instances of disasters.
The party's spokesman on defence said: "In order to ensure the best possible and most efficient emergency planning, consideration must be given to underpinning the role of the Task Force on Emergency Planning through legislation, and creating a single emergency planning body which would report to the highest level of Government, namely the Taoiseach."
Mr Timmins added that the findings of the survey were not surprising.
He called for the Government to clarify whether the group, which was established after the September 11th attacks in the United States, was consulted in advance of last Saturday's Love Ulster parade.
"Ireland is clearly unprepared for man-made or natural emergencies. As it stands, our emergency response is split between a large number of government departments, state agencies and sub-groups. And, even though a number of emergency situations have been simulated, we have never seen any results from these exercises," Mr Timmins said.