John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I acknowledge the members of the retained fire service who have travelled here from throughout the State. I acknowledge this is the last place they want to be. I also acknowledge the many more hundreds who are on picket lines across the State and would like to be here. They do not want to be on picket lines and they do not want to be here. They want the Minister to do his job. I also acknowledge the work done by SIPTU and the National Retained Firefighters Association, NRFA, in mobilising and representing the retained firefighters so well.

A few short months ago, the Minister and I faced each other across the Dáil Chamber during a debate on a motion on the crisis within the retained service. The motion was brought forward by Sinn Féin in front of a Gallery packed with retained firefighters and with their full support. The Minister at the time stated there were issues within the retained fire service. However, he refused to support the Sinn Féin motion, which contained solutions to the recruitment and retention crisis. He stated he had initiated a review of the model of the retained fire service, entitled Retained Fire Services in Ireland - A Review of Recruitment and Retention and the Future Sustainability of Service Delivery. On that basis, the Minister would not support the Sinn Féin motion. That report was published, as we know, in December last year with 13 key recommendations. We are being told that the Government and the Minister support those recommendations. However, the discussion between the representatives of the retained fire service and the Local Government Management Agency, LGMA, broke down in May, citing restrictions put on the negotiations by the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform. The reason there is a strike at the moment is simply down to the double-talk of Government. It states it is willing to support changes to pay and conditions but in the same breath refuses to implement the key recommendations around remuneration, citing the Building Momentum agreement. The Government is telling us the retainer paid to retained firefighters is an actual wage when they were told in the past it was an allowance, which has had the effect of precluding them from benefiting from a 7.5% increase under Building Momentum. Firefighters instead have received a 3% increase to their call-out allowance. If the Government is adamant the retainer is, in fact, a wage, the onus is on it to provide firefighters with the back pay owed to them on the basis the Government has failed to pay them the national minimum wage. At the moment, retained firefighters are on call 24-7, 351 days a year but only get 99 cent per hour for that service.

What I do not want to see here this evening is a repeat of the plámásing the Minister undertook in this Chamber in November. He engaged in plámásing and backslapping. We have had enough. Firefighters have had enough of lip service. We need to see some meaningful action from Government. It is the Minister's action and inaction that have led to the current situation where 50% of fire stations throughout the State are closed this week, with full strike action looming from next week. Nobody wants to be in this situation and that is particularly true of the firefighters. We are now past the point of no return.

In fact, the point of no return was 20 years ago when the then Government published the Farrell Grant Sparks report, in 2002, which recommended a major overhaul of the retained fire service. That Fianna Fáil-led Government and every Government since has simply failed to implement the critical overhaul of the retained service that is required and that failure has led to the current recruitment and retention crisis that we see today.

The retained fire service is broken. It is unsustainable. If the Government insists on continuing to ignore the real crisis within its ranks, this crisis will lead to death or injury to firefighters and-or members of the public.

On the best of days being a retained firefighter is a dangerous job but, when presented with critical levels of understaffing to the degree which some fire authorities are faced with decisions to have to close stations temporarily, it can become tragically dangerous. In reality, most fire authorities are operating below establishment figures. In many jobs, being understaffed is stressful. Often it means the smaller crew must work harder, work longer hours and be on-call for an even greater number of unsocial hours.

We need immediate action. We have seen deaths. In 2007, two firefighters in Bray lost their lives because of the failures within the retained service. I do not say it lightly, but the current situation will lead to injuries. It will lead to death unless Government takes immediate action.

I appeal to the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien. We have the Minister's report. We have his 13 recommendations. The least the Minister could do now is act and implement his own recommendations immediately to stop this strike escalating to full industrial strike action.

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