Mr. Dennis Keeley:

Dublin Fire Brigade's focus is on Dublin city and county. Our scale is somewhat different from colleagues in the National Ambulance Service in the context of that focus. We operate 14 ambulances. What the future looks like in terms of the capacity and expansion of our service will very much fall from the task and finish group. Will we be in a situation where we will need additional ambulances as a result of the findings and solutions that, as Mr. Morton said, will hopefully evolve over the coming weeks and months?

We have been very fortunate - and the Chairman touched on this - in terms of staff retention. We advertised relatively recently. Thousands of people applied. We will build a model of recruitment based on our needs for the coming two to three years. We will have a panel of approximately 200 based on our requirement to fill positions in our fire and ambulance services. We anticipate small enough numbers of staff retiring. We have the capacity to expand our numbers based on our current recruitment campaign.

We agree with Mr. Morton that the commitment to the task and finish group seems to be at a moment of high commitment at a political level. We certainly want to get a solution through this process and make an input into it. That solution is a Dublin-based one. Dublin Fire Brigade will play a big part in it. We and all parties to the process see Dublin Fire Brigade contributing in the long term to the provision of ambulance services for Dublin city and county. The model will evolve from that and if it is an expanded service, Dublin Fire Brigade is well placed to fulfil it.

Funding for the service is at the core of the issue. Part of the task and finish group's role will be to resolve the issue of funding and get to a position where Dublin Fire Brigade can provide the service required by citizens, in agreement with the HSE on what capacity might look like. We are also aligned with the future of the ambulance service nationally, which we hope will involve fewer people going to accident and emergency departments and, where possible, people being appropriately cared for in their homes or in other centres. Dublin Fire Brigade is committed to supporting the NAS and working with it to achieve that outcome.