Terence Flanagan (Dublin North East, Independent)
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564. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government the position regarding Chief Fire Officers (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [18198/15]

Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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Fire services in Ireland are provided by the local authorities designated in accordance with the Fire Services Acts 1981 and 2003. The fire authorities provide a range of operational and fire safety services through 27 service delivery units currently using an infrastructure of some 217 fire stations and 600 fire appliances and associated specialist equipment. My Department’s National Directorate for Fire and Emergency Management provides support through setting general policy, the provision of training support and guidance on operational and other related matters, and capital funding which, over the last decade, has exceeded €155 million.

Under Section 159 of the Local Government Act 2001 each City and County Chief Executive is responsible for the staffing and organisational arrangements to carry out the functions within his or her local authority.

While the information sought in the question is not available in the precise format requested, the national figure of senior fire officers employed by local authorities is 201 in Q1, 2015. The number of fire services with different numbers of senior fire officers is shown in the Table 1 below.

TABLE 1

NUMBERS OF SENIOR FIRE OFFICERS

Overall, the number of Senior Fire Officers in local authorities has decreased from 270 in 2008 to 201 in 2014, a reduction of approximately 25% which is in line with the general reduction in local authority numbers. In contrast, fire-fighter numbers in Ireland have been maintained at a constant level since 2009as shown in TABLE 2 below, despite the moratorium on public service recruitment.

TABLE 2

FIRE-FIGHTER NUMBERS

Fire services are provided by the local authorities and senior fire officer grades are analogous to local authority engineering grades. The senior officers provide fire service leadership and management functions which enable the fire services in Ireland to function on a 24 hour a day, 7 day a week basis. In contrast to other jurisdictions where up to 20% of fire-fighter numbers are engaged in head-quarters/support functions, the senior fire officers in Ireland directly manage the operational fire services which have an annual budget of €267m and are staffed by the 3,250 fire fighters. They arrange, manage and deliver all training, procurement, maintenance, logistics and other support roles necessary for the functioning of the services. The senior officer grade plays a critical background role in ensuring quality and consistent services to thepublic when these are needed.

In addition, the small corps of senior fire officers also provide a range of specialist statutory and community fire safety functions. Fire officers also lead for local authorities in the area of major emergency management and co-ordinate with An Garda Síochána and the Health Service Executive. In a number of cases they manage communication facilities and oversee the Civil Defence service. Many fire officers also contribute to national/regional work to develop fire services in addition to their work with their own fire service.

It is a credit to our local authorities that they provide such quality and effective fire services. Ireland is in the league of most fire safe countries, with a three year average fire fatality rate of 6.4 deaths/million of population in the three years 2012-2014. Of course, each fire death is one too many and we cannot be complacent, but this statistic underscores the quality and professionalism of fire services which our fire authorities, led and managed by the small corps of senior officers, provide to communities.