Senior officials in Clare County Council have disputed claims that there is a crisis in the County Fire and Rescue Service.
Calls for an urgent review and update of the Fire and Emergency Operations Plan 2014-2019 were issued at Monday’s meeting of the local authority in a proposal from Cllr Liam Grant (GP), Cllr Johnny Flynn (FG), Cllr Ian Lynch (IND), Cllr Cillian Murphy (FF), Cllr Donna McGettigan (SF), Cllr Joe Garrihy (FG) and Cllr Shane Talty (FF).
Fire stations across Clare “are struggling to stay up and running,” Cllr Grant outlined. He suggested a similar strategy to that in Cork on the retained fire service be implemented.
Chief Fire Officer, Adrian Kelly acknowledged that the current plan was adopted in 2014 for a five year period. A review has been postponed due to there being no update on the National Review or Maztak Ruling, both are expected to reach conclusion in the near future.
Currently, there are 75 retained firefighter positions across seven stations in Clare, presently there are six vacancies, four of which have been advertised since September. “Although a significant number of firefighters enjoy a long career in the Service, the nature of the Retained Fire Service nationally is that there is a constant throughput of people, particularly in recent years. Reasons for personnel leaving have included, moving to other employment, retirement, personal / family circumstances or the restrictions of the on-call availability of the role,” Kelly outlined.
Cllr Grant who is a firefighter in Ennistymon argued that problems existed with recruitment and retention. He said 24 firefighters were recruited for Shannon since 2016, “sixteen of those have already left the service, they can’t keep people in Shannon”. He warned that resignations are likely in Killaloe if it does not return to a full crew of nine, there are seven officers presently, Grant said as he warned of a future crisis in the service.
Over the past five years, there have been 47 departures from the Fire Service “for reasons other than retirement date, that is over 60% who don’t want to do it anymore, it is not sustainable,” the Lahinch man stated. “A retained firefighter is on call 80 to 90 percent of the time, you can’t mind a family if you’re on call. There is a responsibility on parents to drop their kids to school or a football match, as a retained firefighter you can’t do that, you would have made a lot more money on the PUP than as a firefighter in Clare and you won’t be able to get a mortgage. We’ve an out of date fire emergency plan”.
Pat Dowling, Clare County Council’s Chief Executive stressed to the meeting, “Clare Fire and Rescue Service is not in a state of crisis”.
Improvements in the time taken to mobilise fire brigades was acknowledged by Cllr Flynn, “it is extraordinary to see the level of commitment from retained and experienced firefighters but there are issues on retention”. “Back in the day you were fighting to get into fire service you were dealing with community fires, what they are dealing with now is extremely horrific, you are getting up in the middle of the night to deal with road traffic collisions,” Cllr Lynch noted.
A review is required “to ensure we keep those people for as long as possible,” Cllr Murphy said of the firefighters in the county. “While it isn’t a crisis, it does need to be looked at. The review needs to happen,” Cllr McGettigan commented.
Concern was voiced by Cllr Tony O’Brien (FF) that there are only seven retained firefighters in Killaloe., “I welcome the interview process but we are not far away from a crisis”.
Mention of a crisis was “completely untrue,” Kelly stated. He disputed figures provided by Cllr Grant. “Every time we get a boom in the economy we lose people, during the bust they come back, that is what we’re dealing with at the moment. My mistake was to put 2014-2019 on title, it is not out of date”.
Developments in Doolin with the Coast Guard were not surprising, Cllr Grant flagged, “we needed to tackle the problem three or four years ago, our Oireachtas members and councillors talking now but it is too late. I’m worried for the people of Clare. There isn’t a crisis until there is”.
