Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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169. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government the status of the implementation of reforms to the fire service in line with the keeping communities safe document. [32559/16]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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The provision of Fire Services in Ireland is supported by the National Directorate for Fire and Emergency Management in my Department, which also develops standards and oversees the delivery of quality services by the Fire Authorities. In February 2013, the National Directorate published the Keeping Communities Safe (KCS) policy document which is the blueprint for the direction of fire safety and fire services, aimed at delivering consistent, effective and quality fire services in Ireland. KCS aims to continue to reduce the risk from fires in our communities and to prioritise the safety of fire personnel in their work.

On 17 December 2015, a new national agreement was signed between fire service management and staff representatives on further implementation of KCS. The agreement provided for the replacement of the Consultative Committee element of the National Directorate’s original structure. A new Fire Services National Oversight and Implementation Group (FSNOIG) structure, comprised of employers’ and employees’ representatives, has been established and brought into operation in 2016.

Earlier this year, my Department published a report titled Fire Services in Ireland Local Delivery – National Consistency. This is the first report of a new external validation process on fire risk management in Ireland arising from implementation of KCS. The report examines and reports conclusions on the four specific areas of enquiry - Area Risk Categorisation; Fire Safety; Fire Service Operations and Major Emergency Management; and Health and Safety Management. The report concludes with an overview of themes and issues before making some recommendations for future directions. Among the main conclusions of this report are:

- Ireland is in the league of safest countries in respect of fatalities caused by fire, with a three year average rate of 6.4 fire deaths per million of population in the years under consideration. There is, however, no room for complacency on this aspect, as each death is one too many and there are indications of a reversal of the downward trend;

- Fire Services are applying and refining internationally-recognised risk management approaches to reduce the fire risk and the annual toll of life and property loss caused by fire. Local authorities are matching the assessed fire risk in their individual fire station areas with services based on both full-time and retained fire service models, with a comprehensive support infrastructure, and applying a range of appropriate fire prevention and fire protection approaches;

- Local authorities have benchmarked their fire services against national standards and national norms and a strong degree of consistency, linked to area risk categorisation, now exists in fire service provision; all local authorities are using, or are working towards, national norms as minimum standards;

- Local authority and fire service management are highly cognisant of their statutory responsibilities to ensure the safety, health and welfare of their staff. They are working to appropriate national guidance, as well as internationally accepted norms, to achieve necessary cultural change. Local authority fire services have been recognised as leaders of best practice in safety management by independent assessors;

- Ireland’s fire services are in a transition process from what might be characterised as a self-contained, individual focus to a position where collaboration with each other and partnerships with other branches of local government and other statutory and voluntary sectors are seen as key to achieving the objective of safe communities. Although services are at different stages along the road to transition, and further improvement is required in a number of identified areas, the public are served well by the evolved arrangements and can retain confidence in the integrity and professionalism of those with responsibility for managing and delivering fire safety and fire services in Ireland.