John Cummins (Waterford, Fine Gael)

I thank the Senator very much for raising this important matter. At the outset, I acknowledge the fantastic work that is done by fire service personnel across this country day in, day out. When there are emergencies that most people run away from, they run towards them.I put on record my thanks to them for their fantastic work. Obviously, ensuring firefighters have the appropriate facilities is a priority of Government.

I will add a few pieces later but, to give context to my response, the provision of a fire service in its functional area, including the establishment and maintenance of a fire brigade, the assessment of fire cover needs and the provision of fire station premises, is a statutory function of individual local authorities under the Fire Services Acts 1981 and 2003. The Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage supports the fire authorities through setting general policy, providing a central training programme, issuing guidance on operational and other related matters and providing capital funding for equipment and priority infrastructural projects. Project consideration stages from a Department perspective include: submission of preliminary and detailed appraisals; submission of a design brief; selection of a site; application of approval in principle; appointment of design consultants; submission of a preliminary design planning application; submission of a preliminary cost plan; detailed design and cost plans; and a tender process. As the Senator will appreciate, there are a significant number of stages to progressing a project.

In December 2020, the then Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, announced the fire service capital programme for the period 2021 to 2025, with a funding allocation of €61 million. Following an extensive engagement with fire authorities, a number of proposals for station works were received. The proposals were then evaluated and prioritised on a basis of area risk categorisation of the fire station, which includes population, fire risk and so on, established health and safety needs, the state of the development of the project, value for money offered by the proposal and the totality of requests from all local authorities.

The Senator said in her initial comments that Laois County Council has consistently put the Rathdowney fire station forward as its number one project but the information I have to hand here is that, at that time, Laois County Council put forward the Stradbally fire station as its number one priority, with the replacement of the Rathdowney fire station as its second priority. While the fire station in Stradbally was not initially included in the Department's fire service capital programme for 2021 to 2025, it subsequently was included following a reappraisal. Since then, approval in principle for a new fire station at Stradbally was conveyed to the council in November 2022. The council was approved to tender for design consultants for the project in March 2023 and, in September of this year, the council was approved to invite tenders for the construction phase of the Stradbally fire station project. My Department officials are working with Laois County Council to progress that fire station in Stradbally and I understand the council's intention is to publish that tender request before the end of the year.

Regarding Rathdowney, I will go into further details in my follow-up comments but my understanding is Laois County Council has indicated this is now its number one priority to progress and that, in December of last year, it submitted an updated preliminary appraisal for the proposed new fire station at Rathdowney, noting several issues with the existing station, some of which the Senator identified in her opening comments.