Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will respond to what the Minister of State said in reverse. He said "it is essential that the retirement age reflects the requirement that firefighters should be capable of satisfactorily meeting the physically demanding nature of the role".

5 o’clock

Mr. Molloy made the point to me that he has no issue with regard to that or any of the fitness tests, so that is out of the equation.

Unfortunately, some of what is in the answer is I thought it would be. The reply states that it is the Minister's intention to engage with the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform to ensure that the mandatory retirement age for firefighters is consistent with other uniformed services. We just need this to happen as soon as possible. Would it be possible to issue a circular, as happened previously, stating that this is coming in order that we can find some sort of workaround that could at least ensure that Dunleer maintains a crew of five and a fire station officer with all the institutional memory and knowledge he has? There is nobody to replace Mr. Molloy and nothing is in place to ensure that he does not fall between two stools and is forced to retire when two, three or four months later, that issue would be dealt with. It cannot be beyond the capacity of Government and the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage to deliver a solution. There are two scenarios at play. We are talking about being able to ensure that we deliver a fit-for-purpose fire service for Dunleer and for County Louth in general. I have seen it in action too many times. Everybody realises the necessary work the service does. Beyond that, we have to treat Mr. Molloy fairly. We cannot have him falling between two stools, so we need to make sure that there is some interim action. If we get a timeline - even if the Minister of State could give an indication of the timeline for the legislation and delivering fully - that would be welcome.

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