The HSE’s National Crisis Management Team thanked farmers for their work in helping hospital and healthcare staff during Storm Emma.

Legions of farmers worked to clear roads, tow ambulances and transport staff to and from work during the snowstorm.

Tillage farmer Tom Greene from Kilkea in Co Kildare helped transport nurses, doctors and patients to and from Tallaght Hospital with his Land Rover.

John Cullen and James Kehoe were among those who supplied tractors to ferry staff to and from Wexford General Hospital and St John’s in Enniscorthy. They worked morning and evening shifts to shuttle nurses and doctors between their homes and the hospitals, switching to road-clearing work during the afternoons.

Bruce Lett reported that a tractor was called in to help clear drifts to allow Enniscorthy Red Cross personnel, who were collecting dialysis patients and doing emergency runs for the HSE, get through the most difficult areas. Offaly farmer and agri contractor Brian Healion used his tractor to tow ambulances into the Midland Regional Hospital in Tullamore, where snow drifted to 6ft deep in parts of the Tullamore to Kilbeggan road.

Eoin Spillane and his father came to the rescue of a snow plough in Wilkinstown, Co Meath, when it got into trouble on Friday, digging it out.

In Co Laois, ambulance personnel responding to a call-out to a seriously ill 11-year-old boy were helped by Mark Gorman and friends with a tractor to move their snow-trapped ambulance.