Brendan Ryan (Dublin Fingal, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank Fianna Fáil for tabling this motion on the most important of issues. The provision of fire safety and critical ambulance services is something that cannot remain unresolved and in limbo. Fire brigade personnel have been in a permanent state of industrial unrest for more than three years. It is not their fault, but the fault of the Dublin City Council CEO and a lack of leadership from the Government. It is a testament to the commitment of the Dublin Fire Brigade to the citizens of Dublin that its industrial unrest has not resulted in large-scale industrial action. We welcome this motion as an opportunity to bring home to the Government the need to resolve these issues once and for all.

We are lucky in Dublin to have two ambulance services, one run by the National Ambulance Service, NAS, and one run by the Dublin Fire Brigade. We are especially lucky to be served by the latter. The Dublin Fire Brigade offers a combined service of fire and paramedics, which is a global standard used by 97% of the major cities in the US. We sometimes look at other countries' practices and lament that we do not have them as well, but we have had this service for 120 years.

The calls in the motion must be delivered upon. We need to see full and demonstrable support for the Dublin Fire Brigade from the Government. We cannot forget the sacrifices made by the Dublin Fire Brigade when the country was in an economic crisis. It implemented cost saving measures through internal agreement. Difficult measures were agreed upon between workers and management without ever affecting the vital service those workers provided to our city and county. We must not forget that. In this era of distrust in public bodies and institutions and when scandals emerge in many corners of our society, the Dublin Fire Brigade remains a organisation that is trusted by the majority of Dubliners. We cannot put a price on that, and this trust must not be damaged.

As per the Labour Party amendment, we ask that the Government and the House support the Dublin Fire Brigade. We ask that the Government implement the recommendations of the pre-hospital emergency care services report, which has been lying on a shelf for three years. Its recommendations need to be implemented immediately. The report's conclusion states that the governance structures as set out previously would provide the Dublin Fire Brigade and the NAS the autonomy to plan strategically and develop operations and training to the level required of a professional emergency service. The panel asserted that the removal of any element of the Dublin Fire Brigade's fire-based EMS system would have an adverse effect on patient care and, therefore, it did not support the proposal to transfer call taking and dispatch functions from the Dublin Fire Brigade to the NAS. It was the panel's recommendation that the call taking and dispatch models in both centres be retained.

The panel's main recommendations included addressing operational deficiencies within the Dublin Fire Brigade as well as the implementation of an integrated ambulance service by the NAS and Dublin Fire Brigade. The report also highlighted the need for a new funding structure from the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government alongside the necessity for individual improvements and collaboration between the two providers in the area of call taking and dispatch.

We need to implement these recommendations without delay and provide certainty to the workers of the Dublin Fire Brigade, whom I welcome to the Chamber. We need to provide certainty to the people of Dublin city and county, who trust and respect the service provided. People need to be proud of the service, as we in the Labour Party are. I am proud of the fire service workers from my full-time service in the Swords station and my retained service in Balbriggan and Skerries. We want to let them continue the great work they do on behalf of the people of Dublin.

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