Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Respect is the most important thing. We talk about it in this House. Everywhere we go, we need to respect our colleagues and other people. Will we show respect to the firemen and firewomen in the Gallery and in every town and village in Tipperary and the rest of the country? They wait for a call to go out and put themselves in the line of danger to look after us. We are operating on a model that has been in place since the 1950s. Imagine that. The Government and successive Governments have let down these firefighters.

A recent survey of retained firefighters indicated that 60% of the members of the service are intending to retire or leave in the next five years. That is an appalling vista. Gardaí are scarce on the ground now. On Sunday night, there was a fatality in Carrick-on-Suir and a fireman had to block the roads. That happens on a regular basis. On many occasions, the ambulance service is so depleted that firemen and firewomen have to sit with patients who, in many cases, are seriously injured. They must stay with such patients for hours while waiting for an ambulance because of the folly of having ambulances crisscrossing the country. The Government has damaged the ambulance service. It all falls back on volunteers and voluntary retained servicemen whom I salute from the bottom of my heart for the work they do and how they put themselves in danger.

In Tipperary town, we have been short of firefighters for the past three or four years. The mandarins know about that. When there is a call in Tipperary town, a unit must be mobilised from Cashel or Cahir. That is a scandalous situation. Where is the back-up for those brave men and women if they need rescuing? We saw what happened in Creeslough in County Donegal. It can happen anywhere at the flick of a match.

I spoke to a man named Mark this evening. He had to leave the service. He loved his job in the retained fire service but he was unable to get accommodation. These firefighters must reside within five minutes of their stations and they cannot get accommodation. That excludes a cohort of volunteers from rural Ireland who cannot join the service because it requires them to be on call and they do not live close enough to get there on time.

It is time for us to cop on. I have seen the Government accepting motions willy-nilly in the past 12 or 15 months. It now has the audacity to oppose this motion. Shame on the Government and on the Minister of State, Deputy Peter Burke. The Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, would not even wait for us to have our say. I salute the brave men and women of the retained fire service. We must look after and have respect for them.

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