Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I want to recognise that 15 years ago this September we lost Bray firefighter Mark O'Shaughnessy and Bray substation officer Brian Murray. I attended a vigil for both of them at the time. Their lives were lost at a fire in the town. Our thoughts are with their families, friends and colleagues. Like others, I welcome all their colleagues to the Dáil. I went down and spent a few minutes with them earlier. I want to indicate to them that we fully support this motion from Sinn Féin and commend Deputy Brady on the work he has done in respect of it and for the work he has done over the years.

It is striking that 15 years on from such a tragedy, a vital and lifesaving service such as the retained firefighter service in the State continues to be treated almost like a voluntary service. It is relegated in its importance and stature, almost to the point that it is seen as equal to the lifeboat service or the Coast Guard. All of them save lives, but a lot of our essential services are run on what is practically a voluntary basis. When I talked to the men and women involved about the current conditions, pay and life they have, they indicated that it is almost voluntary. It is disgraceful that this is still going on. We cannot, legally, morally or physically, run any aspect of society without a fire service. Why this has happened and been allowed to degenerate so far is beyond me.

I cannot personalise it to the Minister; he has only been the Minister for two and a half years but he is of a party that has been in power for a long time and his colleagues in power, Fine Gael, were in power when he was not in power. The buck has to stop somewhere and perhaps it is the Department or it is the Minister and his predecessors. I accept the Minister's bona fides when he says that he is enthusiastic about the service, that he is committed to it and that he is waiting for this review to come out. Unfortunately, what the firefighters and I are hearing is that the review is done, that there has been engagement with the representatives - although that is not clear from the motion - and that we are waiting for the publication of the review. It is a bit like what I hear in respect of many issues in this House. I heard the same thing from the Taoiseach this afternoon about the retired workers Bill, which has been sitting for 17 months with no movement whatsoever, while people who are retired get older and older and more and more frustrated. Interestingly, today's march was dubbed the march of frustration and that is understandable from the point of view of the workers who are in the Gallery.

I did a Google search of the term "retained firefighters" today in order to find out what has been happening in the field recently. What comes up is that almost every county in the State is desperately trying to recruit members because there is a chronic shortfall in staffing, whether it is in Wexford, Kerry, Waterford, Sligo, Mayo or Donegal. All of the counties are all chronically short-staffed. This is not anything new; two years before they died, Mark O'Shaughnessy and Brian Murray took part in a local protest in Bray to highlight safety concerns around the issue of the understaffing at the station. Instead of having 15 firefighters at the time, Bray had ten.

Whenever we ask questions in this House about what is happening with this service we are told it is an issue for the relevant local authority. I was a councillor for seven years and I know there are issues with local authorities and the fire service but technically the buck stops here, particularly because we cannot run a society, legally, safely or any other way, without a fire service. It is a two-way street but the State does not value some of its most important front-line workers. Passing the buck to local authorities is not good enough. It has to stop.

The question was asked as to timelines for the review and implementation. The Minister will come back on that but my overall point on the motion is that these people did not travel here today and take it this seriously because the Minister was sitting on a review. It is because of the systemic neglect of these people and the service over many decades, and somebody has be accountable for it.

I want to focus on the question of being available within 5 km of your station and the knock-on effect that has. One of the key things that came up today in my discussion with firefighters was the question of housing, namely, the affordability of housing and the lack of availability of mortgages because of the pay they are on. No matter what town or city you are living in these days, rents are too high. If you can get a place to rent, it is too expensive. All of these problems stem from the Minister's role and job. In his Department, we also have a housing crisis that has a knock-on effect on the real lives of ordinary workers. The same could be said of nurses, teachers and so many people who leave this country or our cities because the cost of accommodation forces them to do so.

An astonishing 97% of these workers voted in favour of strike action. That has to be taken into account when the Minister is looking at how seriously they take what has happened to them and the frustration they feel in the context of trying to move things forward, all the while meeting nothing but obstacles and delay after delay. That is why they had to form the National Retained Firefighters Association.

The Minister has the capacity to solve this problem. The Government has done the wrong thing by proposing an alternative to the motion. That is the wrong thing to do because it divides the House on and us-versus-them basis. The evidence is there that those on the other side of the House, those who rule, have let down the men and women of the retained firefighter service over the years. If they end up on the picket lines we will be with them 1,000%. Most people do not want to ever have to go on strike but if they do so that puts the Minister and the local authorities of breaking the law because they will not have provided fire protection and a service for their citizens. We will be with them but we need to stop passing the buck and to take responsibility. We need answers from the Minister.

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