Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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1166. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government if his attention has been drawn to the current and long-standing issue of the recruitment and retention crisis within the fire and rescue services nationally and that the last meaningful engagement with significant improvement for retained firefighters was the composite agreement which took place in 1999; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [8436/20]

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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1167. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government if his attention has been drawn to the mass exodus of fully trained and experienced firefighters from the fire and rescue service over the past number of years well before retirement age due to their inability to have a work-life balance and the 50% drop in calls nationally that in turn makes it not financially viable to stay in the service; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [8437/20]

Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 1166 and 1167 together.

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 fire authorities under the Fire Service Acts 1981 and 2003.  My Department supports fire authorities through general policy setting and preparing legislation, providing a central training programme, issuing guidance on operational and other related matters and providing capital funding for priority infrastructural projects. 

The Fire Service in Ireland is fortunate to have available to it, in the full-time and retained cadres of staff at all levels, a large number of professional, competent and highly committed personnel. Local authorities are the employers of fire service personnel, and the Local Government Management Agency (LGMA) engages with appropriate staffing representative bodies in relation to overall terms of employment.  Fire services issues are managed in my Department through its National Directorate for Fire and Emergency Management.

My Department is not aware of the high churn of firefighters from the Fire Service described. Indeed in large urban areas where there is a full-time service, there remains a high level of interest in the Service, as indicated by the very high number of responses to recruitment campaigns, the most recent of which was held late last year in Dublin. I understand however, that the situation outside these areas, with full-time services, can vary. In this regard, local authorities and the LGMA continuously monitor the issue of recruitment and retention and work on developing strategies to address such issues, involving and briefing the NDFEM as appropriate.

Work is ongoing in collating data from around the regions, however, provisional statistics would suggest that for the first quarter of 2020 the number of calls received nationally was similar to the previous 3-year rolling average. There is expected to be regional variations and some areas may have seen reductions in calls received. It is also likely that during the Covid-19 restrictions the number of calls will fall in line with public activity.

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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1168. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government if his attention has been drawn to the fact that fire calls are being vetted by fire service management (details supplied); if his attention has been further drawn to the fact that fire service call charges differ from county to county not only in amounts charged to the public and that some counties have call charges and others do not; and the reason persons have to pay for availing of this front-line service but no other front-line service such as An Garda Síochána or the ambulance services. [8438/20]

Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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The provision of fire services is a statutory function of fire authorities under the provisions of the Fire Services Acts 1981 and 2003. The receipt of calls from the public for assistance by the fire service is provided on a 'shared service' basis by three Regional Communications Centres (RCCs) at Limerick, Castlebar and Dublin.  

The vast majority of incidents requiring fire service attendance have a pre-defined weighting for Pre-Determined Attendances (PDA) which guide the appropriate fire service resources to be initially deployed. The predefined weighting sets out the specification of amount and type of appliances that are appropriate to deploy to a particular type of emergency.

I am informed that in some limited exceptional cases incidents may be initially referred to the Rostered Senior Fire Officer (RSFO) in charge, before a decision to mobilise is made and that these type of cases would likely involve low-risk incidents, for example, animal rescue.

While each Fire Authority has a PDA database the officer in charge has the discretion to enhance that deployment or not. The various incident categories and associated recommended PDA standards are set out in Appendix A of the policy document "Keeping Communities Safe- A Framework for Fire Safety in Ireland" published in 2013 and available on my Department's website at the link below.

At times, in dealing with multiple incidents, such as in a storm of flooding situations, RSFO’s may need to make decisions as to and where to deploy limited resources optimally.

The provision of the Fire Service in its functional area, including the establishment and maintenance of a fire brigade is a statutory function of individual fire authorities under section 10 of the Fire Services Act 1981 and 2003.Under section 35(3) of the Act, it is a matter for each local authority to determine whether to charge users or beneficiaries of a service that fire authority provides including attendance at fire incidents.

I understand that fire authorities may operate waiver schemes in respect of call-out charges with cases  considered on their individual merits, including the circumstances of each caller. The householder or premises owner may also be able to recoup charges for attendance of the fire brigade through their insurance policies. 

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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1169. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government his views on whether the fire and rescue service is the best geographically placed organisation to deliver on the co-responder project which would help in reducing the death toll in cardiac arrest and respiratory emergencies in rural areas; and if he will work with the Minister for Health to complete the memorandum of understanding commenced by his predecessors and enable the fire and rescue service to be deployed to respond to these emergency situations. [8439/20]

Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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Responsibility for the provision of emergency medical services, including pre-hospital emergency care, rests with the Health Service Executive (HSE) which operates the National Ambulance Service and emergency departments in hospitals in accordance with health sector legislation and national policy. Fire authorities created under section 10 of the Fire Services Act, 1981 & 2003 are empowered under section 25 of that legislation to carry out or assist in any operation of an emergency nature.

The National Ambulance Service may call on Community First Responders for assistance before its crews reach an incident and many fire services are equipped with automatic external defibrillators and the majority of fire services have trained their fire-fighters in Cardiac First Responder and Emergency First Responder to Pre-Hospital Emergency Care Council standards for health and safety reasons.

Therefore, fire services personnel in many fire stations are already trained and equipped to a standard that could enable them to respond to life threatening emergencies. Given the infrastructure of fire services around the country and particularly in rural locations, the Retained Fire Service is well placed to assist the HSE with responses to such life threatening emergency calls.

As Minister with policy and legislative responsibility for fire safety and the provision of fire services by local authorities, a primary concern must remain, in accordance with the Fire Services Acts 1981 and 2003, that local authority provided fire services are meeting their statutory obligations in respect of their primary role in the provision of fire services and fire safety. These responsibilities include the important activity of community and other fire safety initiatives as well as response to emergency calls.

Fire services generally respond to calls for assistance from external bodies in accordance with protocols operated within the three fire services Regional Communications Centres.

The feasibility of fire services, outside the Dublin Fire Brigade area of operations, being commissioned by the HSE to provide a response service in support of the NAS in responding to life-threatening emergency calls was discussed at national level at the Fire Services National Oversight & Implementation Group, which consists of fire service management and staff representatives and it produced a discussion document as the basis to underpin discussions with the Health sector. The document was discussed at the Management Board of the National Directorate for Fire and Emergency Management in July 2018 where a number of issues including the transfer of risk and mechanisms for funding were raised that remain as items of discussion with the Department of Health.

Any proposal for formalising this assistance would need to be subject to appropriate governance and cost reimbursement arrangements and to be set in the context of a service agreement with the HSE/National Ambulance Service which will not impact on or adversely affect fire services' primary roles. It is critical that local authority and fire services' resources are not inappropriately diverted from their statutory fire service and fire safety responsibilities. The potential impact on the current Community First Responders schemes would also have to be assessed.

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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1170. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government if his attention has been drawn to a report (details supplied) that stated that the retained fire service was not fit for purpose; and his plans to ensure that the proposals will now be implemented. [8440/20]

Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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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 fire authorities under the Fire Service Acts 1981 and 2003.  My Department supports fire authorities through general policy setting and preparing legislation, providing a central training programme, issuing guidance on operational and other related matters and providing capital funding for priority infrastructural projects.

The Farrell Grant Sparks Report referred to by the Deputy was published in January 2002 and it represented a comprehensive review of fire services and fire safety in Ireland at that time. It is important to point out however, that it did not find the fire service or any part thereof, as  unfit for purpose.

It did however, identify a number of areas where the fire service could be improved further. I have been informed, it was an important landmark in the development of fire services in Ireland and contributed towards a re-orientation and re-shaping of the fire service towards a more holistic approach with a greater emphasis on Community Fire Safety together with incident response.

Since the review was carried out there has been significant development of fire services in Ireland across a wide spectrum of areas. This included significant investment in and development of, infrastructure including fire stations, fire engines, equipment and training. The National Incident Command System, was established and standard operating guidance to support safe and effective operations have been implemented through the Fire Services Change Programme. The current service delivery structure was also introduced and the National Directorate for Fire and Emergency Management (NDFEM) was established in my Department.

The NDFEM carried out a further significant review of fire services and fire safety in Ireland in 2012 and the Report "Keeping Communities Safe", was published in 2013. It sets out approaches across a number of areas, including: risk management; service delivery structures; fire safety; service response; dealing with large scale incidents; inter-agency work; major emergency management; quality assurance; performance reporting and implementation.  The Review is available on my Department's website at the following link:

In 2016, an external validation on the implementation of "Keeping Communities Safe", concluded that the public are served well by fire services in Ireland.  There has been a welcome downward trend in fires and other emergencies requiring fire service assistance over a number of years and a reduction in the incidence of loss of life in fire. The validation was supported by visits to all fire services throughout 2014 and 2015 and the conclusions applied equally to both full-time and retained services. A similar evaluation exercise is targeted for completion in 2021.