Written answers

Wednesday, 13 January 2021

Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government

Emergency Services

Photo of Sorca ClarkeSorca Clarke (Longford-Westmeath, Sinn Fein)
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324. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the number of full-time and part-time firefighters per county. [44657/20]

Photo of Darragh O'BrienDarragh 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. Under this legislation, 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, a breakdown based on data supplied by local authorities of the number of firefighters in each fire service as at December 2020 is set out in the table below.

Fire service Total no. of operational staff in stations
Carlow 45
Cavan 92
Clare 75
Cork City 152
Cork County 204
Donegal 154
Dublin 963
Galway 138
Kerry 104
Kildare 61
Kilkenny 68
Laois 68
Leitrim 41
Limerick City & County 140
Longford 46
Louth 100
Mayo 116
Meath 72
Monaghan 51
Offaly 53
Roscommon 45
Sligo 43
Tipperary 127
Waterford 124
Westmeath 47
Wexford 64
Wicklow 87
TOTAL 3280

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