Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Just to bring the Deputy back, it is important to state that I have great respect for the men and women in the retained fire services. I met many of them throughout the country. That is why I commissioned the report into the retained fire services in Ireland with an emphasis on issues the Deputy mentioned, namely, recruitment and retention. As I said to Deputy Duncan Smith earlier, we had more than 1,000 submissions to that, many of them from firefighters themselves. In December I accepted the recommendation of the management board of the national directorate for fire and emergency management to publish the completed review. I brought it to Cabinet. To be clear, the Government accepted the findings of the report, noting the 13 recommendations contained to address those issues around recruitment and retention in retained fire services and, importantly, to ensure its sustainability into the future particularly around recruitment.

Discussions between staff and employer representatives on the 13 recommendations began and we established the fire services national oversight implementation group to which the Deputy referred and that was chaired by Mr. David Begg in January 2023. The LGMA was involved. It was supported by the Chief Fire Officers Association and officials from my Department. Following a proposal by staff side representatives, discussions on the priority industrial relations, issues of remuneration and work-life balance were moved to third-party facilitation form. That was agreed again by all. Mr. Ultan Courtney was subsequently engaged by the LGMA at the behest of SIPTU to chair those discussions. Broadly, they went very well. The agreed key deliverable required that the process is a revised composite agreement that would be agreed by all stakeholders. That will standardise future employment terms and conditions across all local authorities, including pay and allowances. During those discussions, real progress was made on the provision of a revised model of retained fire services delivery that would provide for effective service delivery and a suitable work-life balance as I mentioned earlier, including structured time off, which is a major issue for people who work in the retained fire services. However at this stage it has not been possible to reach a positive conclusion of that process to the satisfaction of all of the parties. I have outlined to Deputy Duncan Smith a flavour for the things that were offered. SIPTU notified all local authorities of the intention of the retained fire services to begin a period of industrial action from 6 June with weekly escalations following that. It will not affect emergency service provision. A small number of issues are outstanding, mainly related to a pay element that can be resolved. However, we also have the public sector pay talks - Deputy McNamara will be coming back in in a second - in relation to Building Momentum. Therefore we cannot do it necessarily outside of that. We made real progress on the rostering, on time off and on allowances also. I want this to be resolved. I have retained the fire services directly under myself. I have not delegated that function because I have immense regard for it. We can resolve it. There is a desire to do so.

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