Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independents 4 Change) | Oireachtas source

Our public services face a crisis. They face under-funding, staff shortages and general lack of resources. This has created intolerable working conditions for those who provide essential services and life-saving services. This motion deals with just one element, which is staff shortages and the consequences for Dublin Fire Brigade. I salute the firefighters on their professionalism and dedication to their job and to the citizens of this State, but that must demand respect from the powers that be, who have the responsibility to resource and support these workers.

Dublin Fire Brigade is the biggest fire service in the country, with 12 full-time and two part-time stations and with more than 900 staff. However, recent months have seen staff shortages of up to 20%, with up to three quarters of our fire engines taken out of service for periods of time, leaving parts of the city without adequate cover. If the people of the city realised this, they would be angry and shocked.

I contacted a SIPTU official, who said these types of shortages have consistently been the case. Dublin Fire Brigade and Dublin City Council management accept there is a staffing shortage issue. The official said SIPTU had called for accelerated recruitment to overtake the issue and that it would bring it to the Workplace Relations Commission to try to secure that. He also said that, unfortunately, Dublin Fire Brigade has refused to commit to the required level of recruitment and has instead tried to leverage concessions by undermining the 2012 Dublin Fire Brigade control room agreement, which provides that Dublin Fire Brigade emergency service controllers would demonstrate fitness at the recruitment stage to progress in due course to firefighter, which most of them aspire to. This is obviously the reason the firefighters feel they are forced into taking industrial action.

On one Monday in September, I received an email from SIPTU highlighting the crisis that the firefighters are looking at every day of the week. At 9 p.m. on Tuesday, 28 September 2021, the following engines were off the road due to staff depletion: D81 fire appliance, Rathfarnham; D126 aerial appliance, Dun Laoghaire; D41 fire appliance, North Strand; District Office Delta, district officer, North Strand; D31 fire appliance, Phibsborough; and D101 fire appliance, Tara Street. In addition, the following appliances were manned by one firefighter: D11 fire appliance, Donnybrook; D12 fire appliance, Donnybrook; D121 fire appliance, Dun Laoghaire; D21 fire appliance, Dolphins Barn; D22 fire appliance, Dolphins Barn; D71 fire appliance, Tallaght; and D72 fire appliance, Tallaght. The following appliances were manned by two firefighters: D51 fire appliance, Finglas, with one pump station; and D91 fire appliance, Blanchardstown, with one pump station. He went on to say that following overtime call backs and the contacting of staff on leave, the position at 10.30 p.m. for "off the road" was: D41 fire appliance, North Strand; District Office Delta, district officer, North Strand; D31 fire appliance, Phibsborough; and D101 fire appliance, Tara Street.

That is a crisis for these workers. These fire engines cannot be manned so they are not able to go out to fire incidents. However, as I said, despite recognition by Dublin City Council management that there is a staff shortage, it has refused to commit to the required level of recruitment.

In June 2018, Fianna Fáil Deputy John Lahart and former Deputy John Curran put forward a motion, and the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, spoke in that debate to support the motion, which was not opposed under the then confidence and supply arrangement between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. The Minister, Deputy O'Brien, said: “We need to make sure that a clear message goes out from the Dáil tomorrow and this evening that Dáil Éireann supports the operation of Dublin Fire Brigade, the Dublin Fire Brigade ambulance service and the fire-based emergency medical system.” He continued:

I spoke with the Minister, Deputy Harris, this evening and I suggested to him that after the planning of this motion I would sit down with him to work on the next steps forward. Our colleagues in Dublin Fire Brigade want to know what will happen next. A motion and debate in the Dáil and ventilation of the issues are good and well but the Fianna Fáil Party and I want to see a roadmap forward to investing in Dublin Fire Brigade. At the moment there should be 133 firefighters and paramedics and 36 officers on duty at all times maintaining front-line fire appliances. However, there were only 129 and 29 officers due to start work last night. There is a deficit in staff and appliances. We need at least another four ambulances within the service and we should be proud of the service that is there.

That was in June 2018, so the Minister has obviously been on top of this issue since then. He had direct contact with the Minister of the time and he was going to put in a plan to bring in more ambulance services and recruitment. I know that Covid hit in 2020 but that was a year and a half after this debate in the Dáil. I would certainly like to see more urgency from the Minister, although I am glad he is not opposing the motion. What I would like to see is that the Joint Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage would have a quarterly report from the Minister on recruitment levels and the position on fire appliances, in particular how many have been brought into service in the previous quarter. That type of accountability is going to be important for the future of fire services in Dublin. I ask that the Deputies on that committee would demand that quarterly report so a close eye can be kept on this and there would be transparency as to what exactly is going on in our fire services. This is particularly important around the point on the growth of high-rise apartments and to ensure Dublin Fire Brigade is given the resources and training to fight fires in high-rise buildings. How is that training going to be given to the staff who are there at the moment? As pointed out by other Deputies, these firefighters cannot be released because of the low numbers and they are already in a state of crisis, so how is that going to happen? I urge the committee to ensure that transparency from the Minister every quarter as to where we are in regard to recruitment, appliances and firefighting in high-rise apartments.

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