Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I congratulate my colleague, Deputy Paul Donnelly, on bringing forth this important motion. Like others, and as all Deputies who contribute to the debate this evening probably will do, I pay tribute to the men and women of the Dublin Fire Brigade, our firefighters, ambulance staff and paramedics. I do not think there is a Member of this House who, either directly from family experience or as a constituency politician, has not had interaction with the fire service at the front line of its work. This is not a normal job. It is not a job you start at 9 a.m and from which you can go home at 5 p.m. It is a vocation. The men and women of the Dublin Fire Brigade bring to that job an enormous level of commitment. That is shown very clearly in the fact that day in, day out they put their own lives at risk. That is not only a tribute to them, but to their families and their wider communities.

When I look at successive Governments, I find that often it is those public servants at the very coalface of some of the most difficult jobs who are resourced the poorest. Sometimes, that is carers and other times it is nurses or members of the Defence Forces. That the men and women of the Dublin Fire Brigade felt the need to ballot for industrial action is itself a failure. Everybody here knows what is required. Everybody here knows what we need to do. It would be really powerful if, coming out of this debate, we had unanimity and an acceptance that there are issues here in terms of resourcing, staff, training and support that need to be resolved and that, with collective political will, clear intent and signalling from Government, we can ensure are resolved in the best interests of the men and women of the Dublin Fire Brigade and the men, women and children of the city in Dublin.

Like the Minister and Deputy O'Reilly, I represent a constituency that is growing very rapidly, namely, Adamstown, which the Minister visited recently, and the significant residential development at Clonburris will commence soon. Therefore, not only do we need to meet the current staff complement, in respect of which there is a shortfall, we need to go further than that. I genuinely look forward to the Minister's response. I hope we can speak with one voice tonight and do the right thing by the men and women of the Dublin Fire Brigade.

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