Mr. Seán Hogan:

Yes, and there are various other issues. We asked that the people living farthest from fire stations be prioritised for smoke alarm schemes so that we would get out there. The key issue from our perspective is life safety. In turn, smoke alarms are key in that regard and not, I regret to say, proximity to a fire station. It is the fees. Obviously, it affects the level of damage.

While we have set standards which push for a relatively high level of fire safety in houses accommodating Gaeltacht students, I would highlight the risk involved in there being 15 or 20 teenagers staying in a house. What we do not want anywhere is a tragedy in such a case being reported. I regret to say I am familiar with one case in which there was a fire in a house in which 15 students were staying, but the system worked. There were other issues involved but that is the nightmare scenario. We are certainly open to considering joining our grant scheme for smoke alarms with the CLÁR programme and the various other groups and community groups and whatever else can be done. We see the future in the joining up of our schemes in such a way. Between the fire service and us, we will not be able to access the people who need to be accessed but we will have to get there.

I interpreted Deputy Ó Cuív's second question as meaning that every county would develop its own service. He makes a fair point because that was how it used to be. Fire services are provided by local authorities and, according to the way the legislation was framed, they were to develop or could pick their own standards. They could do whatever they wanted to do. That has been the case since the directorate came in. We have tried to change that focus by publishing a document called Keeping Communities Safe.

It set out for the first time national standards for fire services and introduced the idea of area risk categorisation. There is clearly a difference between the risk of fire in an area in the west and Dublin inner city and the docks; therefore, we must consider how to grade the fire risk in an area and how to match the fire service with this risk. That is what the document did. It took the existing fire services and worked from there. It was something that had been sought for 30 years and we were successful in doing it. We were able to do it because we had data. We were able to supply fire services with three years of fire data in order that they could complete an area risk categorisation. The data showed the numbers of fires in communities during the previous three years. We were able to show them by fire station throughout the country. Local authorities took the data, looked at individual fire stations and could see if the number of chimney fires was twice the national average or if the number of false alarms was three times the national average and could then decide to try to resolve some of these issues. The process enabled them to do this.

As shown on the cover of the report, each fire station area has been graded as very high, high, medium, low or very low in terms of fire risk. There were 217 fire stations when the report was produced and there are now 218, as a new station was opened in Carraroe in west Galway, probably as a result of consideration of the data available. The data are being used. Having graded an area, the type of fire service required could be considered, as could the number of fire engines needed and the timescales within which they should they arrive. The document sets out this information. Each of the 27 fire services engaged in this exercise. We met everyone, heard presentations and captured the information on actual response times.

I accept the point that as fire services are provided by local authorities, they are a type of independent republic, but now they are independent republics which must benchmark themselves against national standards, hence "local delivery national consistency" is part of the title. We believe we have cracked it after 30 years in which we were not sure how to go about it. We believe we have succeeded in achieving it. That is a significant point.