Tony Killeen (Clare, Fianna Fail)

I wish to offer my sincere condolences to the families of Brian Murray and Mark O'Shaughnessy and to their colleagues and friends in the Bray area. It was clear to those of us who attended their funerals that they were held in the highest esteem. The tragedy of their deaths brought home to all of us the tremendous work fire-fighters do, the risks they take and the level to which communities are dependent on them. I also wish to pay tribute to Michael Liston and Garda Brian Kelleher who were victims of the Foynes tragedy earlier this year.

Local authorities provide fire services and the job of Government is to ensure the legislative framework is sound and to develop and support fire services throughout the country. The Department's fire services capital programme is designed to put in place the infrastructure, including stations and fire appliances, to enable fire-fighters to do a good job and thereby support the local fire authorities in the development and maintenance of a quality firefighting and rescue service. This commitment to and increased investment in the fire service has brought dramatic improvements in the fire service infrastructure nationally. In the past 25 years, almost €240 million has been provided under the fire services capital programme throughout the State for the provision of new and refurbished fire stations and the purchase of fire appliances and other equipment. At this stage, over two thirds of our fire stations, including almost all of the busier stations, have been replaced. In addition, we have a modern fleet of frontline fire appliances and a modern communications system. The local authorities spend some €240 million per year in operating the fire service. There have been massive improvements affecting all areas of the service, including the employment of more staff, the provision of better training and the strengthening of legislation.

There are some 3,400 people working in the fire service. There are over 1,000 full-time fire-fighters in our major cities and over 2,000 retained staff who respond to protect their own communities when needed. We have 170 senior personnel who lead the service. Included in the latter are professional staff who examine all building plans for fire safety and carry out inspections of premises. The work that has been done in this field is phenomenal and great credit is due to those involved.

In commenting in recent days, many people acknowledged the level of professional training our fire-fighters receive and noted the quality of their equipment. Training provided locally is supplemented by the Fire Services Council, which runs an annual programme of training courses and seminars for senior and junior fire officers and for instructors who train the fire service personnel at local level. Under the fire services change programme, a decision was made at the early stages of the competency module to link the fire services to the National Qualifications Authority and the Department has engaged with the Further Education and Training Awards Council, FETAC, in this regard.

The principal job of the fire services is about protecting people, infrastructure, property and the environment from the threat of fire. A number of measures have been taken in recent years to increase public safety and, consequently, reduce the risk to fire-fighters. Building regulations have been in place since 1992. This means that, during the construction boom, the design of all buildings other than private houses being built or modified must have undergone the fire safety certification process. Since 1998, all new houses must have mains operated smoke alarms.

The Minister has already stated that a series of initiatives have been developed under the community fire safety programme, including a smoke alarm campaign and the primary schools programme. From research, we know that there are in excess 300,000 homes in this country which do not have smoke alarms. This figure does not include households which have alarms that are not working. There are families that would not go to bed at night without locking their doors. They would, however, do so without having working smoke alarms in place. This is all the more surprising and worrying when one considers that it takes fewer than three minutes for someone to die of smoke inhalation. The Department, with the assistance of the local authorities, is trying to target some of these vulnerable sectors. The other sectors must be targeted through increasing awareness. In that regard, I pay tribute to the voluntary and community sector for assisting the Department and local authorities in targeting people who might otherwise not be targeted as regards the use of smoke alarms.

The functions of the National Safety Council relating to the promotion of fire safety at a national level were returned to the Department in September of last year. Since then, the Department has developed its own suite of fire safety promotion literature which is available from its website, local authorities and health centres throughout the country. The Department also runs its own media campaign, which commences with national fire safety week. The Bray tragedy occurred on the eve of national fire safety week, which was due to commence on 1 October 2007. As a mark of respect to Brian Murray and Mark O' Shaughnessy, the Department's campaigns were postponed until after the funerals. The Department's TV and radio advertising campaign was postponed until last night. This campaign will run on all TV and radio stations until the end of the year. It is hugely important in the context of bringing home to people the message that each of us has an individual responsibility to ensure that every provision relating to fire safety is in place in our own homes and at our business premises.

A separate review of the major emergency management field resulted in the development of a new major emergency management framework in 2005 and the initiation of the major emergency development programme 2006-08. This process has gone well beyond the Farrell Grant Sparks recommendation in this regard. The fire service will play a key role in developing this programme and will ultimately be central to its roll-out and implementation.

Major emergency management is a key challenge and a priority issue for the Government. The roll-out of the new framework will bring Ireland into line with international trends in this area. The purpose of the new framework is to put in place new arrangements that will enable the three principal response agencies — local authorities, An Garda Síochána and the Health Service Executive — to prepare for and make a co-ordinated response to major emergencies. The framework is the foundation for the development of a new generation of major emergency plans by the principal response agencies. It sets out the mechanisms for co-ordination at all levels of major emergency management — on site, local level and regional level, with links to national level major emergency management architecture when required. I acknowledge the place of local authority fire services in major emergency management over the years and the work of city and county managers and senior fire officers in the development process.

The major emergency development programme 2006-08 is currently being rolled out to implement the provisions of the framework. It is the objective to have the process, including exercises and testing of the new updated plans, completed by autumn 2008.

On the one hand, this indicates that substantial work is under way but that this is somewhat short of completion. An important element of our knowledge in this area undoubtedly relates to the 2007 review of the fire services change programme, to which the Minister earlier referred. In the context of Bray and other tragedies, it is important to bear in mind the provisions of the Health, Safety and Welfare at Work Act 2005, which I steered through the Oireachtas some time ago and with which Members on all sides engaged at a level not frequently seen as regards legislation of that kind. I have no doubt that HSA investigation will be independent and well-resourced and will prove hugely important regarding the kind of outcomes people expect and the concerns that have been expressed by earlier speakers and others who have made their views known in this regard.

It is also important to bear in mind that all the key stakeholders in the fire service are participating positively in the fire services change programme and have bought into it to a great degree. Great credit is due to people for facing up to the changes required. In some instances, these changes impact negatively on people's lifestyles and require a level of investment of time that not everyone would be prepared to make.

As already stated, the major emergency framework is hugely important and the fire service will have the key role in respect of its roll-out and implementation. I was interested in the point made by Deputy Ferris regarding the fact the Dublin fire service responded to over 200 calls per day in 2004. While, as the Deputy correctly states, this highlights the enormous job undertaken by fire-fighters on behalf of everyone in the community, it also indicates that the vast majority of the 200 calls per day relating to fire incidents could be prevented if we could put across the message relating to prevention as effectively as possible.

When I was appointed to the Department and looked at this area, I was shocked to find that approximately 300,000 homes are without a smoke alarm. At the first fire services event I attended, I was even more shocked when I was shown a video of two fires which had occurred in Ennis in my own area. In the case of one of the fires, a working smoke alarm prevented not just loss of life but minimised damage to such an extent that one would barely know that a fire had been responded to and dealt with. In the other case, a non-working fire alarm was clearly visible on a worktop in the kitchen with a battery left alongside it that one presumes was out of action and in the process of being replaced sometime. That brings to mind all the other houses, in addition to the 300,000 to which I referred, whose owners realised it was important to have a fire alarm but whose alarms were not operational because the batteries were not replaced or some difficulty was not addressed. That is a great concern to anybody who looks at the kind of dangers fire-fighters are exposed to going about their work. The more of us who, as citizens, fail to deliver on our duty to take preventive measures, the more people working in the fire service we put in danger.

The 2005 fire services change programme is being driven by a high-level implementation group to implement the main fire service and fire safety recommendations of the Farrell Grant Sparks report. The view was taken initially that it was more important and a priority under the change programme to use available resources to bring about direct improvements. It is true that the proposals for institutional change were not made a priority at that time. As the Minister has said, he intends looking very carefully at all aspects of the fire service programme arising from this tragic incident and also on foot of the report that will undoubtedly be made available to the Department when the three investigations have been completed. It is important that this is done.

However, it was sound judgment initially to bring about direct improvements to areas that were immediately to the fore. When the programme was launched, it advanced the key fire safety and fire services recommendations in four priority areas. These areas were as follows: the enhanced safety and welfare of fire-fighters; community fire safety; a competency-based approach to recruitment, retention and career progression; and the development of a risk-based approach to emergency cover. These are all very important areas.

A number of project structures involving all the stakeholders were put in place to advance the programme. The first phase of the programme has just been completed. It focused on the enhancement of safety, health and welfare. This mostly resulted from the provisions of the 2005 Act, to which I previously referred and which the Leas-Cheann Comhairle played a very active and important role in seeing through the Houses of the Oireachtas. An updated ancillary safety statement template for the fire service to comply with that legislation was put in place. Other measures put in place included: a new national incident command system; revised breathing apparatus guidelines, associated training and training materials; and a critical incident stress management system to assist fire-fighters in dealing with the aftermath of traumatic and stressful incidents.

The incident in Bray last week was undoubtedly the most traumatic and stressful incident that anybody in any line of work could be subjected to and an appalling situation for the colleagues of the two victims, Brian Murray and Mark O'Shaughnessy. However, we must also remember that, on a daily basis, our fire-fighters are called out to road traffic accidents and fires involving fatalities and deal with extremely difficult, trying and stressful situations. All of us on all sides of the House would agree that every provision that can be put in place to help them do that job effectively and safely without any negative impact on their own health and well-being should be put in place. Whatever technical disagreement there might be among us in the House in respect of how this motion is dealt with, I have no doubt that, across all political parties and among all of us involved in this area, there is a willingness to move forward and address whatever shortcomings there may be. We would all also acknowledge that considerable progress has been made and that in delivering that progress, we should not forget that chief fire officers and county managers, but particularly fire-fighting personnel, have played a key role.

As I have said, considerable progress has been made under key areas, including a series of initiatives in the community fire safety area. Key among them is the installation of smoke alarms in the homes of vulnerable and elderly persons. We sometimes forget the tremendous role that the community and voluntary sector plays, very directly in the current campaign, in helping to target elderly and vulnerable people who do not have fire alarms and might not be aware that a scheme is in place. Besides making the applications, the community and voluntary sector frequently helps in the provision and installation of the alarms. It is very important that we pay tribute to it.

In respect of the programme targeted at third class, I pay tribute to all those firemen who have gone out to schools throughout the country. I know that last year, every primary school in County Clare was visited and every third class pupil was visited by people from the fire brigade. They make a significant impact. Last week, I visited the school in which I taught for a number of years. Two fire-fighters were there speaking to third class pupils. Of course, in a small country school, it was not just third class pupils who were affected. Everybody in the school was eager to see the firemen and what they were doing. The message went home very strongly to parents in that community, as it did in every other community where the third class was visited, that we all have a responsibility in respect of our property to make provisions that are extraordinary inexpensive and readily available. There are so many outlets where one can pick up a smoke alarm. It is so easy to install and the battery lasts so long that none of us has any excuse for putting our families' lives or our property in danger, and just as little excuse for putting the lives of very brave fire-fighters in danger.

The Government is committed to continuing to implement the necessary changes to ensure that we have a world-class fire service. Progress under the programme can be viewed in conjunction with the following: strengthened fire safety legislation of 2003, the major emergency development programme approved by Government arising from the review of the framework for major emergency management commissioned in 2004, the success of the capital investment programme which is very visible in all of the local refurbished and new fire stations throughout the country and the quality of the equipment which is on a par with best international standards, very importantly, the provision of relevant training to fire authorities supplemented by the central training programmes provided by the Fire Services Council and the strengthening of the management structure in local authorities, all of which have been done over a period of time to try to ensure we have the very best provision in terms of our capability to address fires and trying to ensure the safety of the very brave people who deliver that service to us.

Ultimately, this is a very big picture and programme and an area where it would be very wrong to point to one particular group and lay all the responsibility for delivering a better service on it. There is no doubt that the Government has a key role to play in terms of the provision of legislation, providing the necessary framework and ensuring the finances are provided. Equally, local authorities have their own responsibility for the delivery of services in a very direct way. It is incumbent on all of us, particularly in the wake of these appalling tragedies, in memory of the two brave men and as a mark of respect to their families, to ensure that every effort is made to deliver the highest quality of service for the people of the country.

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