Mr. Dennis Keeley:

I will do my best to get through them. Regarding the audit that was commissioned, the national directorate for fire and emergency management drew up the audit of cladding buildings nationwide. Dublin Fire Brigade engaged in that audit. We discovered a small number of buildings and engaged with the owners regarding the type of cladding and where the cladding was identified as needing to be changed or altered - I think it was about 18 premises in total - a very small number of them required modification or changes. All but one of those fully engaged with us. There was one case where the property was vacant and we had trouble identifying the owner but subsequently we got to that. There was a very small number where that issue arose and there was nothing at the higher end of risk as far as we were concerned. We produced those audits several times in the years since that report was published as follow-up with the Department. That remains an ongoing piece of work.

We have a particular unit that was established within Dublin Fire Brigade to do an audit of those particular types of accommodation and we have engaged with the various stakeholders running those particular institutions to ensure that the fire safety standards, where we identify any deficiencies, are brought up to relevant standards. That is an ongoing piece of work, very well advanced at this stage, and we see an increase in the level and quality of those accommodations from a fire safety perspective as a result. Those are visits we engage in and follow up on, as I said, in respect of the standard.

There are a variety of resources from operational to fire safety to our engineers right across the brigade. This is a challenging time for personnel and recruitment. The market is very difficult. We have a small number of vacancies in our fire safety element, on which we intend to go to the market very shortly. We have a business case with the chief executive to strengthen and enlarge our fire safety element with additional engineers, which has been looked at favourably. That is in a process. We hope to go to the market in the coming weeks or months on that. As for our operational, we have a recruit class starting next week and another class scheduled to begin on 8 October, which will bring our firefighter numbers up. We have taken delivery of a brand-new turntable ladder, which is the first 42 m one in the State, and we have a second one on order, which will be with us in January. We have additional vehicles requested through the Department. I am in the process of getting sanction for two of them. That is a long way around to saying that the resources that are required are being provided and we constantly evaluate our needs. Dublin is a growing city. It is a challenging city. There are new risks constantly coming into the city, so we are constantly evaluating that risk. Where demand or resources are required, I have found the chief executives and the various councils forthcoming in addressing those requirements.