Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I hear the Deputy's concern and he is genuinely very passionate about this. Wicklow County Council tells me it had to make the decision last year to stop some recruitment intended to try to bring the level back up to what it had been a number of years ago, which was twice as many manning the station as there are now. It has ten and probably should have proficiency of six or seven more. It will recruit again in January and I hope it is not too long before the Deputy sees a full complement of staff. As the Deputy said, when the stations where we live were built we were living in the sticks. We cannot really call Bray or Ashbourne the sticks any more. We now live in the metropolitan district of the greater Dublin area. The Deputy is probably right that the fire stations need to be manned to reflect changes in population increases over the time since they were established.

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