The provision of fire services is a statutory function of fire authorities under the provisions of the Fire Services Acts 1981 and 2003. The receipt of calls from the public for assistance by the fire service is provided on a 'shared service' basis by three Regional Communications Centres (RCCs) at Limerick, Castlebar and Dublin.
The vast majority of incidents requiring fire service attendance have a pre-defined weighting for Pre-Determined Attendances (PDA) which guide the appropriate fire service resources to be initially deployed. The predefined weighting sets out the specification of amount and type of appliances that are appropriate to deploy to a particular type of emergency.
I am informed that in some limited exceptional cases incidents may be initially referred to the Rostered Senior Fire Officer (RSFO) in charge, before a decision to mobilise is made and that these type of cases would likely involve low-risk incidents, for example, animal rescue.
While each Fire Authority has a PDA database the officer in charge has the discretion to enhance that deployment or not. The various incident categories and associated recommended PDA standards are set out in Appendix A of the policy document "Keeping Communities Safe- A Framework for Fire Safety in Ireland" published in 2013 and available on my Department's website at the link below.
https://www.housing.gov.ie/local-government/fire-and-emergency-management/policy/keeping-communities-safe-framework-fire-safety
At times, in dealing with multiple incidents, such as in a storm of flooding situations, RSFO’s may need to make decisions as to and where to deploy limited resources optimally.
The provision of the Fire Service in its functional area, including the establishment and maintenance of a fire brigade is a statutory function of individual fire authorities under section 10 of the Fire Services Act 1981 and 2003. Under section 35(3) of the Act, it is a matter for each local authority to determine whether to charge users or beneficiaries of a service that fire authority provides including attendance at fire incidents.
I understand that fire authorities may operate waiver schemes in respect of call-out charges with cases considered on their individual merits, including the circumstances of each caller. The householder or premises owner may also be able to recoup charges for attendance of the fire brigade through their insurance policies.
