Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 8 May 2019
1562. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett asked the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government the number of front-line staff in Dublin Fire Brigade in each of the years 2014 to 2018; the number of new recruits in each of the years; the cost of overtime for each year; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [19463/19]
View answerFire services are provided by local authorities in accordance with the provisions of the Fire Services Acts 1981 and 2003. Under section 159 of the Local Government Act 2001, each Chief Executive is responsible for the staffing and organisational arrangements necessary for carrying out the functions of the local authority for which he or she is responsible. Dublin Fire Brigade covers the four Dublin local authority areas and is managed on a shared basis by Dublin City Council.
My Department oversees workforce planning for the local government sector, including the monitoring of local government sector employment levels and payroll costs and processing staff sanction requests. To this end, my Department gathers quarterly data on staff numbers, pay and superannuation in the local authorities but this does not provide details of the specific role and function of each individual staff member or overtime costs. This detailed information should be held by the local authority concerned.
Details in relation to the number of firefighters for the period 2014-2018 are set out in the following table.
|
Dublin City Council |
Fulltime Firefighters |
Retained Fire-fighters |
|
2014 |
867 |
23 |
|
2015 |
842 |
21 |
|
2016 |
898 |
28 |
|
2017 |
920 |
26 |
|
2018 |
906 |
30 |
In the period from 1 January 2014 to 31 December 2018, my Department received 143 staff sanction requests for Dublin Fire Services-related posts, all of which have been approved.
