Paddy Burke (Fine Gael)
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I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy O'Dowd, to the House. Senator Kelly will raise the first matter. You have four minutes.

John Kelly (Labour)
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It will not take four minutes. I thank the Minister of State for coming in to address this Adjournment matter. It relates to fire services and the new document launched recently entitled Keeping Communities Safe. I am at a loss to understand how by implementing this new document the Government can keep communities safer because the document proposes to cut the number of firemen attending emergencies, such as car accidents and chimney fires, to five per brigade. Under health and safety rules and regulations this may be considered to be unsafe given that a typical incident command team has nine present.

On numerous occasions I have called for a national fire and ambulance service. It would have the blessing of all Ministers. There was a recent incident in my neck of the woods. We have been discussing shared services. We need to establish whether shared services are simply an aspiration on the part of the Government or a principle to be implemented in all cases.

Through the blessing of the Minister for Health, Deputy Reilly, and the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Hogan, the chief fire officer and the chief ambulance officer for the western region agreed to co-locate an ambulance in a fire station in my home town of Ballaghaderreen, but a civil servant blocked it. Yet it is Government policy to have shared services and two Ministers were in favour of the move. It defies logic. I am looking for assurances that nothing in this document will be implemented which would put the lives of firefighters or the public at risk.

When one is asked to save money one probably discusses the matter with those in management circles and asks how they would go about saving money. In the case of Ireland, there are 30 chief fire officers, approximately 350 assistant chief fire officers and hundreds of support staff, while in Northern Ireland there is one chief fire officer, two assistants and only a dozen administrative support staff. If the Government wishes to save money in the fire services, this is where it should look. If it is good enough for one chief and two assistants to run the whole show in Northern Ireland, then having 30 chiefs and 350 or more assistant chiefs in the South is not justified. I suggest we are probably looking in the wrong direction for savings.

Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)
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I thank Senator Kelly for raising this matter, which I am taking on behalf of the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Hogan, who is unavoidably absent. The Minister, Deputy Hogan, recently adopted and published Keeping Communities Safe, the national policy for fire services and fire safety.

Keeping Communities Safe is the blueprint for changes which will align fire services and fire safety in Ireland with international best practice. The policy document was prepared by the Department's national directorate for fire and emergency management in a collaborative process which included the expert input of chief fire officers and fire services personnel and an extensive round of consultation with stakeholders. The overarching objectives of the policy are to ensure as far as possible that people and property are protected from fire and that fire service personnel are as safe as possible when going about their work. The challenges are to reduce the incidence of fire through better fire safety and prevention, ensure an effective response when fires occur and maximise the safety at work of the fire service personnel. To address these challenges, Keeping Communities Safe is underpinned by a risk management approach in which identified risks are balanced with appropriate prevention, protection and response strategies.

For the first time in Ireland, Keeping Communities Safe puts in place an approach to setting national standards for our fire services. The standards, and associated targets, cover the full range of tasks, including mobilisation, initial pre-determined attendance, normal crewing levels and incident reductions. These are intended for use locally but will give us a consistent national approach. The area risk categorisation is one of the first tasks to be undertaken locally by each fire service. This will enable a benchmarking of local services against the associated response service targets. These targets are graded according to risk-rating and national pre-determined attendances are set for the various categories of incidents. Using this approach we can appropriately gauge quality, performance and effectiveness into the future. The risk management approach supports the ability to target resources at fire prevention in our communities and thereby reduce incidents which lead to loss.

The question of whether we should move to a national fire service structure was also considered. In the context of local government's excellent track record in providing effective fire services and the vision for local government set out by the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government in Putting People First, which was published late last year, the Minister concluded that local authorities are best placed to continue providing fire services for our communities. This will ensure that provision of fire services are underpinned by local democracy and local accountability. However, in the interests of efficient, quality and value-for-money services, we are moving towards a more shared service structure by reducing the current 30 fire service delivery units to 21, comprising 14 single fire authority services and seven multi-authority shared services arrangements serving populations in the region of 120,000 to 200,000 generally. One of the seven shared service delivery units is Roscommon-Sligo-Leitrim.

The importance of safety for our 3,200 fire fighters and officers as they go about their work cannot be over-emphasised. The risk management approach is intended to ensure that, despite the hazardous nature of the job, all fire service personnel are as safe as possible in their work. Keeping Communities Safe prioritises the development of a safety management system which will complement other safety at work initiatives introduced into the fire service over the last decade, as well as the ongoing training programme within the fire services.

In summary, Keeping Communities Safe will help make Ireland a safer place to live, work and visit. It has been developed using a collaborative approach between central and local government, and involved extensive consultations with all stakeholders. The same ethos and approach will be adopted as we now move to its implementation.

John Kelly (Labour)
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Reducing the number of fire fighters who respond to calls from nine to five is not going to improve safety. Two years ago an incident occurred in Limerick in which one fire tender responded and a Garda and a fireman lost their lives on the road because health and safety requirements were not being fully observed.

We should be selling the property tax to people on the basis that we are providing a service to them. We are not charging for fire services. A considerable number of people are getting bills from local authorities following call-outs but the reality is that house insurance only covers a proportion of the cost. It was recently suggested that whatever portion of a house insurance policy is paid to the insurance companies should be paid to local authorities to provide the service. That is one way of financing it.

An individual from Scotland contributed extensively to this report. In Scotland there is one fireman for every 500 of population. In Ireland the ratio is 1:1,600.

Paddy Burke (Fine Gael)
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We cannot have speeches.

John Kelly (Labour)
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These points have to be taken into account.

Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Senator for his comments and I will bring them to the attention of the Minister concerned. I regret the loss of anybody's life, and particularly the two people who died while responding to an incident.

In regard to the potential impact of these proposals on staff working in the fire services, should matters arise at the implementation stage which could affect the terms and conditions of employees they will be dealt with through the national directorate's consultative committee, at which unions, including SIPTU and IMPACT, are represented. I take the Senator's point, however. Some policies included retained firemen who, while they would not be officially firemen, were trained and available to respond in the event of a serious fire. Whatever complement of personnel our fire services need to respond to a fire should be assigned. I cannot envisage a situation arising under the Minister's proposal where that will not obtain. There will always be adequate and proper cover for any fire. Clearly, however, a chimney fire would not require as many responders as a major industrial or commercial incident.