Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 8 September 2022
546. Deputy Patricia Ryan asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage the process involved in local authorities transitioning fire stations from part-time to full-time; if there is additional funding available to local authorities for this; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [42522/22]
Amharc ar fhreagraThe 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 Services Acts 1981 and 2003. My Department supports the fire authorities through setting general policy, providing a central training programme, issuing guidance on operational and other related matters and providing capital funding for equipment and priority infrastructural projects.
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 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.
Government policy as set out in KCS provides guidance to the fire authorities on the provision of fire services, in particular on the process of ‘Area Risk Categorisation’ to guide the planning of the optimum configuration of stations and staffing arrangements appropriate to the established risk profile. Any change to the staffing profile of a fire station would be a matter for the local authority based on need. There is currently no dedicated stream of departmental funding available to local authorities to fund the type of transition outlined.
