Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)

With the agreement of the House, I propose to share time with Deputies Behan, Gogarty and Cuffe. There may be a fourth Deputy with whom I will also be sharing time later.

I welcome the opportunity to address the motion before the House. As a Member representing the constituency of Wicklow and as a resident of Bray, I can inform the House that the fatal fire on 26 September has had a devastating effect on the entire community of Bray and on surrounding areas. I join other Members in again expressing my deepest sympathy to the families of Mark O'Shaughnessy and Brian Murray and to the members of the fire service in County Wicklow on the loss of their colleagues.

In the days following this terrible tragedy, I visited the fire stations at Bray and Greystones to get an understanding of the events that led to this sad loss of life. When I spoke to fire service personnel, the depth of their loss, their courage and their dedication to the service and their community came through in equal measure. In addition to the pain of their loss, I also detected pain at some of the comments that were made regarding the tragedy and the capacity of the retained fire services.

Some media inquiries have been extraordinarily insensitive. Deputy McManus indicated that she was asked to state whom she regarded as being responsible. I commend her on the fact that she did not adopt that form of approach. Nor has the Deputy attempted to play politics with this matter. I received inquiries similar to those put to Deputy McManus as to who should be blamed. My view is that this was an horrendous tragedy and inquiries must be carried out and a report issued with minimum delay.

Nobody in Bray or Wicklow has any doubts about the skill, dedication, courage or capacity of retained fire service personnel. These individuals are exemplary in every regard. In addition to recording again my sincere condolences to the Murray and O'Shaughnessy families and the fire crews, I wish to acknowledge the service fire-fighters in Bray and others throughout the country provide in protecting the lives and property of citizens.

As one would expect, many questions have arisen in the aftermath of this terrible tragedy. Three investigations are under way and it is imperative that these be concluded as soon as possible. No good will come from a protracted period of inquiry. There have been calls for a fourth investigation, namely, an independent inquiry. I have an open mind on this issue. If such an examination would produce early results, it would be welcome.

The fire service in Ireland has undergone immense change and development in recent years. The challenges that fire service personnel face are changing on a daily basis, as are the dangers with which they are presented in answering those challenges. The fire services change management programme 2005 introduced during my tenure at the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government contains the roadmap setting out the approach to dealing with these challenges and the dangers that accompany them. It focuses on four priority areas for action: enhanced safety and welfare of fire fighters — I regard this as the top priority; community fire safety — a previous speaker referred to the importance of the community fire service; a competency-based approach to recruitment and career progression; and the development of a risk-based approach to emergency cover. The latter was covered in great length in the contributions of previous speakers. All four areas are of vital and equal importance.

The fire services change management programme finds its inspiration in the Farrell Grant Sparks report. Progress is being achieved in the four priority areas to which I refer. There has been some comment on the Farrell Grant Sparks report and its implementation. It is not true, as has been suggested in some quarters, that nothing has happened since the report was published. Action is under way on each of the four areas to which I refer. As Members are aware, the first report on the implementation of the programme was published as recently as June of this year.

The motion before the House calls for the establishment of a national authority for fire and civil protection-emergency services. I fully accept the bona fides of those putting forward this call. I suggest, however, that this is one area in respect of which we need to pause and consider. Virtually not a day goes by in the House without Members raising questions regarding the wisdom of consigning significant areas of public policy implementation to bodies outside the immediate control of Ministers. Sometimes such bodies are appointed to speed up the execution of public policy, whereas at other times the approach is adopted in order to remove sensitive areas of public policy from political interference. The HSE was established with the former objective in mind and An Bord Pleanála was set up for the latter reason.

Members on all sides regularly criticise the outcome of such assignment of responsibility to what are commonly called "quangos", a term I dislike. It is said that we already have 600 such bodies in this country. This represents a very significant removal of public policy from democratic answerability. The first question we must ask in respect of this particular issue is whether it would be better to remove fire services and fire policy from direct democratic control. I have my doubts in that regard.

The second point that arises regarding the creation of yet another national authority relates to resources and whether it would be better to establish such an authority or invest the available funds in the fire service itself. My view remains that all available funding should be channelled directly into the fire service — for the purchase of equipment and engines, providing training and developing community-based fire programmes — rather than into establishing yet another agency.

The third and most pressing consideration at the time was to move from the talking stage to the implementation stage. Members are correct that programmes and reports are often left lying around for years without any action being taken in respect of them. If Government were, as a first step, to become involved in institutional change, this would inevitably delay progress on implementation in other key areas such as those relating to safety and welfare, the creation of a community-based approach, the implementation of a competency-based approach to recruitment and career progression, and the development of a risk-based approach to emergency cover.

This is not to say that creation of a national authority should be ruled out for all time. That is certainly not the case. The decision made at the time was that the energy and resources should first be invested in the four key areas to which I refer. Perhaps the most succinct expression of this point is to be found in a constructive response from a SIPTU representative who appeared on a programme broadcast by East Coast Radio last week. The individual in question queried whether a group of ten or more people sitting around a table could really change anything.

The question of a full-time or retained service was also raised and I want to again commend Deputy McManus for her measured comments on this matter. As the Minister, Deputy Gormley, stated and as Deputy Timmins acknowledged, a decision on this matter must be taken by the local fire authority, Wicklow County Council. This has always been the case. I continue to support the concept of a full-time fire service for my home town. What public representative would not do so? While perusing my records yesterday in order to deal with a press query, I discovered that as long ago as 1997, when I was a member of Wicklow County Council, I submitted a proposal calling for a comprehensive study of the costs and benefits of a full-time service to be carried out. I suggested at the time that if it was not possible, as a result of a lack of resources, to provide a full-time service for Bray and north-east Wicklow, the possibility of providing a sub-regional service should be considered whereby the service from Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown would be transferred into the area. This proposition did not win support.

I resurrected this possible approach in 2001 but, again, it was rejected. On that occasion, the idea did not find favour in either Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown or Wicklow. At present, Wicklow County Council has put a report on this matter out for public consultation. It will come, as is appropriate, before council members again in the near future. They will then be faced with the question that their counterparts in other local authorities have had to face regarding full-time fire services. Unless we decide to change the basis on which we organise the fire services and decide to opt for a full national service, the basic decision in respect of this matter will remain with local councils.

What happened in Bray two weeks ago was the most awful of events to befall a community, particularly one already bearing the scars of fire tragedies in the very recent past. The loss to the families involved is incalculable. No person in this House can begin to put a measure on the price those families have paid. There are questions that must be answered about the Bray tragedy. The sooner the reports are under way and completed, the better. The results of those inquiries and the changes that are under way in the change management programme can then be factored into the changes that must be introduced in the Wicklow fire services. When that happens, as was said last night, hopefully, some good will come from this awful tragedy.

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