John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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331. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government if his attention has been drawn to a report that was arried out by Wicklow County Council in 2014 on the provision of a full-time fire service for Bray and north County Wicklow; if the funding will be provided the for the establishment of a full-time fire service in north County Wicklow; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [17302/20]

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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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 Services Acts, 1981 and 2003. My Department, primarily through the National Directorate for Fire and Emergency Management (NDFEM) 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.

Fire services are provided in Ireland by local authorities in accordance with the provisions of the Fire Services Acts, 1981 and 2003. At the moment there are 31 fire authorities which provide fire prevention and fire protection services for communities through 27 service delivery structures. Local authority fire services are delivered by approximately 3,300 local authority staff engaged at 218 fire stations nationwide.

A review of fire services in Ireland resulted in the publication of “Keeping Communities Safe - A Framework for Fire Safety in Ireland” (KCS) in 2013. This report was the outcome of a wide-ranging review of fire services in Ireland which was undertaken in 2011/2012, and was endorsed as national policy in early 2013. It is available on my Department's website at the following link:

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The KCS policy document set out the overall approach, the methods and the techniques to achieve the objective of keeping communities safe from fire. For the first time, it set out national norms, standards and targets against which local authorities can benchmark their fire services. It concluded that local authorities were best positioned to continue to provide fire services in Ireland.

Over the course of 2014/2015, an External Validation Group (EVG) commissioned by the Management Board of the NDFEM, visited every fire service in the country as part of a new external validation process arising from implementation of KCS. In April 2016, the Management Board published the first EVG Report titled “Local Delivery - National Consistency”.

In the case of Bray, Co. Wicklow, the report referred to by the Deputy was reviewed as part of the EVG process, and the findings of that process are available on my Department's website at the following link:

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It concluded that based on the Area Categorisation for Bray a retained fire service was sufficient at that time. I understand that there has been no significant change in the intervening period.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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332. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the breakdown of the establishment of retained firefighters in each fire authority and each fire station; the manning levels in each authority and station; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [17303/20]

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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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 Services Acts, 1981 and 2003. My Department 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.

Fire services are provided in Ireland by local authorities in accordance with the provisions of the Fire Services Acts, 1981 and 2003. At the moment there are 31 fire authorities which provide fire prevention and fire protection services for communities through 27 service delivery structures. Local authority fire services are delivered by approximately 3,300 local authority staff engaged at 218 fire stations nationwide, with 16 of these stations being full-time stations, a further 4 are mixed full-time and retained, and 198 retained stations.

My Department does not routinely collect the data in the format requested by the Deputy. However, as part of on a broader review exercise currently in progress a breakdown, based on data supplied by local authorities, of the number of firefighters in each fire authority as at July 2020 is set out in the table below.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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333. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government if he will consider commissioning a medal for bravery to be issued to members of the fire service similar to the Scott Medal which is issued to members of An Garda Síochána for acts of bravery; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [17304/20]

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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Persons from all strands of society, including staff of local authority fire services, are eligible to be nominated for an award under the National Bravery Awards. Under this scheme, Deeds of Bravery Awards are given to people who have saved a human life involving personal risk to themselves.

Comhairle na Míre Gaile - the Council for the Recognition of Deeds of Bravery - is under the remit of the Minister for Justice and Equality, and it meets on an annual basis to consider and decide on the awards to be made. The scheme has been in operation since 1947, and awards are presented in four categories – gold, silver, bronze and a certificate of recognition. Further information relating to the Bravery Awards may be found at: www.bravery.ie. I understand that a number of members of the fire service from all over the country have been recognised under the Scheme for their courageous acts.

I wish to take this opportunity to place on record my appreciation of the vital contribution made to our society by the men and women of the local authority fire services. Fire services are trained to operate as teams, to evaluate each emergency situation and to undertake appropriate risk assessments to ensure the safety of the public they serve as well as their colleagues and themselves. Given the focus on teamwork and risk assessment, I have no current plans to introduce a separate bravery awards scheme for individual members of local authority fire services staff, however, I am open to consulting and seeking the views of fire service representatives on the matter.

In 1992, a scheme of long service awards for personnel in the local authority fire services was launched. There are four categories of awards, marking service of ten years, twenty years, thirty years and forty years. The ten-year award is a certificate presented locally, while the twenty-, thirty- and forty- year awards all involve the presentation of medals and certificates at a national ceremony. The twenty-year award is a medal bearing the traditional logo representation of the fire service - a helmet and crossed axes. The thirty-year award is a flame emblem. The forty-year award is a bar; both the emblem and bar attach onto the medal ribbon.

The first national awards presentation was organised in 1998 and is now held every two years at a national presentation ceremony. The latest of these ceremonies was held in November 2018 at which 288 fire service personnel were eligible for awards.