Vol. 333 No. 5
asked the Minister for the Environment if he is aware that a dispute between officials of his Department and chief fire officers is resulting in the holding up of grant payments by Bord Fáilte for holiday house schemes in County Galway; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
161.
asked the Minister for the Environment if he will take steps to resolve the dispute between officials of his Department and chief fire officers; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
With the permission of the Ceann Comhairle, I propose to take Questions Nos. 160 and 161 together.
There is no dispute between officials of my Department and chief fire officers. I am aware that discussions have been taking place between the Local Government Staff Negotiations Board, representing the management side, and the Local Government and Public Services Union, representing chief fire officers, on the restructuring of the county fire service with a view to reaching agreement under the conciliation and arbitration scheme for local authority and health services. The main difficulty is that the union's demand is in conflict with an agreement made in 1979 which involved all professional officers of local authorities. I understand that, due to the imposition of a work-to-rule and ban on overtime by fire officer members of the union since 1 December 1981, in pursuance of their claims, there has been some delay in discharging certain aspects of local authority work. This industrial action has had no effect, however, on grant payments by Bord Fáilte in respect of holiday house schemes in County Galway.
As the forum for the resolution of this dispute is the conciliation and arbitration machinery it would be inappropriate for me to make a statement on the merits of the case but I would like to take this opportunity to emphasise my anxiety that an equitable settlement should be reached which is acceptable to all parties.
