Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 11 November 2021
79. Deputy Brian Stanley asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage the progress in addressing the difficulties in retaining part-time firefighters and improving their terms and conditions. [54361/21]
View answerThe provision of a fire service in its functional area, including the establishment and maintenance of a fire brigade, the assessment of fire cover needs and the provision of fire station premises, is a statutory function of individual fire authorities under the Fire Service Acts, 1981 and 2003. My Department supports fire authorities by establishing policy, setting national standards for fire safety and fire service provision, providing a central training programme, issuing guidance on operational and other related matters and providing capital funding for priority infrastructural projects.
Fire services are provided in Ireland by local authorities in accordance with the provisions of the Fire Services Acts, 1981 and 2003. Under this legislation, there are 31 fire authorities which provide fire prevention and fire protection services for communities through 27 service delivery structures. Local authority fire services are delivered by approximately 3,300 local authority staff engaged at 217 fire stations nationwide. 16 of these stations being staffed by full-time firefighters, a further 4 are mixed full-time and retained, and 197 are staffed by retained firefighters, with approximately 2,065 retained firefighters around the country. It is important to note that the numbers of fire service front-line staff have been maintained at a constant high level throughout the economic challenges of the past number of years, even when staffing numbers, by necessity, were reduced in other areas of the local authority sector.
In 2013, my Department published 'Keeping Communities Safe (KCS) - A Framework for Fire Safety in Ireland'. The adoption of KCS as national policy saw national norms/ standards being established for fire services in Ireland for the first time, against which local authority fire services could benchmark themselves. The report of the Fire Service Validation Group, ' Fire Services in Ireland, Local Delivery - National Consistency', published in 2016, noted the staffing arrangements in place in fire services across Ireland to achieve these standards and that fire services manage staffing levels in fire stations to achieve the national standards of fire service response.
The prioritisation of work and effective management of all resources is, in the first instance, a matter for management in each of the fire services, based on their assessment of local risk, needs and resources. In relation to the staffing requirements in each local authority, under the Local Government Act, 2001 it is the responsibility of each Chief Executive to employ such staff and to make such staffing, funding, recruitment and organisational arrangements as may be deemed necessary for the purposes of carrying out the functions of their local authority.The provision of fire services by local authorities is based on a risk management approach which involves an analysis of the nature of the fire hazards and the incidence and extent of fires which occur, as well as the fire protection measures in place. There has been a welcome downward trend in the incidence of fire, with the fire fatality rate per million of population, using a three-year average, currently at 4.3 deaths per million of population. While each death is one too many, this figure is a third of what it was twenty years ago when it stood at 12.9 deaths per million of population and positions Ireland among countries with very low fire fatality rates.
In relation to issues regarding recruitment and retention within the retained fire service; the Management Board of the National Directorate for Fire and Emergency Management has approved a proposal for undertaking a review of the model of local authority ‘retained’ fire services delivery, with particular emphasis on the recruitment and retention of staff. The objective is to explore and understand the issues which are impacting on service delivery, to undertake research and analysis and to propose options which will underpin the continuing provision of effective and inclusive local authority fire services into the future.
