Olwyn Enright (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)

Like all speakers tonight, I extend my sympathy to the families of Brian Murray and Mark O'Shaughnessy on their recent tragic deaths. These deaths have brought back to the forefront issues that should have been long since resolved.

I thank the Minister, Deputy Gormley, for his speech but he has not outlined adequately the reasons the Farrell Grant Sparks report has not been fully implemented to date. He said the last Government, in 2005, launched a programme to advance the key recommendations of the report. However, as far back as Deputy Martin Cullen's time as Minister, he promised he would implement the report. The Taoiseach, in a letter to the fire chiefs in 2002 said that Fianna Fáil believed that the report's recommendations must be implemented without cherry-picking. Sadly, it is clear that since that letter five years ago, there has been a substantial cherry-picking of recommendations. I have been told that while some of the relatively easy recommendations have been implemented, the tougher, more costly ones, were not. That is a serious point that needs to be teased out.

I am sure the Minister is aware that one of the report's authors, Mr. Tom Murray, said that the key on which the report turned was the setting up of a national fire authority. I very much support him in this and indeed the motion tabled here tonight by the Labour Party in that regard. He said that to progress with other recommendations without this was to deal only with the symptoms rather than the main deficiencies which were institutional and structural.

Treating symptoms is just dealing with the tip of the iceberg. The root of the problem must be tackled and we need to look at reality in this regard. All experts in the area, including fire chiefs, seem to agree on some of these points. Effectively, at national level we have no standards, monitoring or compliance checking. The system being operated is outdated compared to that in many countries in Europe and around the world. Regardless of such comparisons, it is outdated in any event. We do not even have a clear mechanism for assessing risk right across the fire service. Despite the clear recommendations in the Farrell Grant Sparks report, fire cover standards still operate on an area-based regime linked to speed of response rather than to risk associated to area.

The Bray tragedy has again thrown up the issue of full-time versus part-time or retained fire services. The sad reality is that I cannot properly comment on this and, with the greatest respect, neither can the Minister. Because we do not have a national fire authority we cannot assess what should be in place in Bray or indeed other towns around the country. In some respects that provides a comfort blanket for the Government, which it can hide behind. However, the ultimate responsibility for the fact that we do not know lies with Government. Had a national fire authority been in place, at least we would have been aware of the standards which we needed to live up to and what each local authority must provide. There is no comfort blanket for fire-fighters as the people who risk their lives in providing a service without proper standards being in place.

Unfortunately many other towns such as Bray are in the same position. I have done some checking on facts and figures and Tullamore has almost the same number of calls as Bray per annum and also operates on a retained service. If a national fire authority was in place there would be clear criteria.

I wonder to what degree the Minister has examined the options. Has he thought of day-manning some of the stations? It is obviously difficult to get fire-fighters during the day, especially given the criteria that they need to live and work within a relatively short distance from the stations. Then there is the issue of traffic problems and access to stations. However, there are options such as having full-time crews in some areas during the day and a retained service at night. I am not suggesting that this is what is needed in Bray or Tullamore. Again, I do not have the expertise and there is no national authority to assess this. There are difficulties as regards rural regions as well as built-up urban areas. Some fire authorities find it difficult to recruit part-time fire fighters in rural areas, again because so many people travel to urban areas to work. While the number of call-outs might be relatively small in rural areas, fire-fighters must be available all the time and that presents problems.

The pace of Government roll-out facilities is still poor. I welcome the fact that towns such as Birr and Edenderry in my constituency have new fire stations. Birr waited nearly 20 years for it to happen, but other places, too, have problems. Ferbane fire station is very antiquated and in desperate need of replacement. It is a place of crucial geographical importance, serving the N62 west Offaly power region, Bord na Móna and the whole peat area. Clara also awaits the provision of a new fire station.

I will return to the point Deputy Doyle referred to regarding the Minister's speech and throwing responsibility back on the local authorities. I wrote to the Minister in July about Clara, following receipt of a report I had sought from Offaly County Council. The council report informed me that the plans had been lodged in the Department for a number of years. I knew that and wrote to the Minister to find out how matters were progressing. The response was similar to that which I get from the Minister for Health and Children when I table questions about the HSE. I specifically asked whether the Minister could look into the matter of the proposed plans and what stage they were at in the Department. He wrote back to tell me it was a matter for Offaly County Council. We could write to each other for another ten years on this and go around in the same circle. Offaly County Council does not and will not have the funding to build a fire station either in Ferbane or Clara. The Minister knows the money comes from his Department. It is important when we raise these genuine queries on very important issues on behalf of people living in these areas that we get answers telling us, in effect, that the Minister is looking at the plan and at what stage it is at, rather than referring us back to the local authority which will not write the cheque to provide the service. The provision of funding for stations for equipment comes from the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government and that is the reality.

The Act outlines the role of local authorities in terms of providing services, but the nuts and bolts of such provision must come from the Department. I thank and congratulate all members of the fire service for the fantastic work they do in extremely difficult circumstances. I ask the Minister, in the light of the work they do for what is a small return, to reconsider the Government's amendment and support the Labour Party's motion.

See this speech in context