[A.F.S]

The family of fallen fireman Brian Murray will next Saturday 13th October 2007, lead a march through Bray to call for a full-time service for the town. The March will depart from the Town Hall at 11 a.m.

Please support the need for a full-time fire & emergency service for North Wicklow, 24 day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

Your being there will make a difference.

Margaret Cahill,
actioncommittee @ wicklowtoday.com

by rights every station on the country should take to the tarmac. a nationwide strike would give the powers that be plenty to think about

[portlairge]

by rights every station on the country should take to the tarmac. a nationwide strike would give the powers that be plenty to think about

slow down a minute talking about strike is a bit harsh "hope the public dont hear of it" that is no way to get something like this sorted if anything it will turn the public against us... think about it telling the public that there will be NO fire cover because the complaint is that there is too little cover.."widespread panic".. bad call if you ask me.

[Let it burn]

I agree with redodare. With Bray's call volume I think the best they can hope for is a day manned station....In other words a fulltime station during the day reverting to a retained station at night when traffic levels in the town drop.
More importantly this county boundry stuff must stop. "RedODare" mentions Donnybrook which is not too far away. Remember also that Dunlaoire fire station(DFB station no.12) is only a few minutes up the M11 motorway. A full time station with 2 pumps and hydraulic platform.
There is no excuse for stations to be ignored just because there is a county boundary between them.

[Beaker]

I agree with redodare. With Bray's call volume I think the best they can hope for is a day manned station....In other words a fulltime station during the day reverting to a retained station at night when traffic levels in the town drop.
More importantly this county boundry stuff must stop. "RedODare" mentions Donnybrook which is not too far away. Remember also that Dunlaoire fire station(DFB station no.12) is only a few minutes up the M11 motorway. A full time station with 2 pumps and hydraulic platform.
There is no excuse for stations to be ignored just because there is a county boundary between them.

In the current socio-economic climate, that is the best solution.... Hear hear!

[loadngo]

Here here if the Politicans respect us and value us so much why not respect our opinion
They where quick to be seen on TV and comment to the radio/papers and turn up at the funerals why not
honor Brian and Mark by giving Bray the service they need and deserve i for one live in Dublin but will make my way down to give my support

Actions speck louder than words ....

[alpha]

What happened in Bray has unfortunately already disappeared from the news and like it or not it will disappear from the publics mind soon enough, however much we dislike the thought. The government will do nothing to change the structure of the fire service as it is delivered nationally. The have a clear position ie the Fire Services Change Programme will deliver all that is needed and as the local authoriites are responsible for the delivery of the fire service, it is their choice on how they deliver it, within budget naturally.
They will also say that the FSCP is looking at a "risk based approach to fire service cover", which it is, the problem is there is no time scale on its delivery as far as I am aware, nor is there any satisfactory data to refer to, to create a risk assesment for each fire authority.
As for the costs, it seems to cost at least €3m to run a 4 watch fulltime station, as against €1/2m for a busy retained station - big difference.
As for Bray, there seems to a particular problem there as their volume of calls seem to be too low to warrant a fulltime station but also the volume of calls are low , seemingly due to the fire authority deciding in advance not to mobilise to certain incidents.
There is a feasability study for the provision of a fulltime service for Bray posted on the Wicklow Co Co website,it makes interesting reading.
I overheard a certain CFO (who shall remain nameless naturally),who was very near me at the Bray funerals and he fervently hoped that Bray would get a fulltime fire service - as this would immediatly difuse the calls for fulltime station in the rest of the bigger towns !!! And he was perfectly serious.
It is also worth noting that none of the people who will make the decisions on the delivery of the fire service are firefighters- the politicians arent, the public arent but most importantly our senior officers arent either - they, bar few exceptions are engineers, who apply engineering solutions to problems and regrettably I dont really trust people who talk about a job they have never worked at.
I hope to God Brian and Mark 's deaths will change things but I'm beginning to doubt it.

[Chilled]

In my opinion Bray hasn't a hope in hell in getting a full time service unless Wicklow Co Co wins the euromillions draw. Everything in the mind of a bureaucrat boils down to money and budgets. There is no point trying to make an arguement based on emotion or morality. Study the feasability report and the facts make it plain why the powers that be will not sanction fulltime cover for Bray.

The total budget for all of Wicklow Fire Service as it stands is 3.8 million. Of this 0.38 million is allocated to Bray. If Bray was to go fulltime 24hr cover its cost rises to 3.1 million. Out of an existing bugdget of 3.8 mill we now have one station costing 3.1. Don't think so. Its not going to happen!!

Even day manning will cost over 2 million. Any move towards fulltime in Bray will most definetly lead to some form of cutback in the other 9 stations in Wicklow. If you believe more money will be made available to top up this budget just look at whats happening to the HSE because of budget overruns.

Every comparable size town in Ireland will have a case for fulltime if Bray gets it. Call me a cynic but i repeat again, its not going to happen!!!

Oh, and calling for a strike is quite possibly the most ridiculous comment i've read on here for a long time

[RedOdare]

I agree with redodare. With Bray's call volume I think the best they can hope for is a day manned station....In other words a fulltime station during the day reverting to a retained station at night when traffic levels in the town drop.
More importantly this county boundry stuff must stop. "RedODare" mentions Donnybrook which is not too far away. Remember also that Dunlaoire fire station(DFB station no.12) is only a few minutes up the M11 motorway. A full time station with 2 pumps and hydraulic platform.
There is no excuse for stations to be ignored just because there is a county boundary between them.

Hey LIB, yea why I mentioned Donnybrook was you have a ridicolous non co-op between the two counties that if a fire calls comes in on side of the border either county will call in units from the far side of their county before asking for nearby county assistance. Now does its take 2 kids to be lost in such a house fire before the politicans kick up steam about this for a couple of weeks before letting it slide away again.

Why can't the Dublin & Wicklow CFO's sit down and agree to back each up without charging for it as I believe what happens between Dublin & Louth. If you have crews committed in BA to a building fire esp an industrial fire there should be a Rescue Crew on standby if lads get trapped, that means at least the nearest 3 pumps covering the fire ground. Does this happen through out the whole country.. NO..!

You have Meath county only wanting one pump going to a house fire and lads in Tara St control getting a bollocking for dispatching two pumps..! when does the madness stop!

[A.F.S]

Oh, and calling for a strike is quite possibly the most ridiculous comment i've read on here for a long time

well to be honest dialoge isnt going to work. The polliticans are all talk no action, i spent a lot of time before the election canvassing for a full tme service here. The only one who has contacted me since was a local TD the other day who told me he was going to bring us up during the dail debate. From reading the transcripts of the debate he didnt even speak. The public dont really care about the service, they were quite happy the last few weeks to ring liveline and the likes to vent their anger but to be honest the only time they will wory about the fire service is when they need them. As was pointed out the decision makers (county managers, directors of services and chiefs) are all money men. They are trying to run a buisness and bring the costs of operating that buisness down, so they arent going to listen to ways to spend more money from the lads on the ground. Maybe me calling for a strike was a bit heat of the moment.... we have seen down this way the last few weeks that marches will achive little, Shannon Airport and Ennis General Hospital spring to mind. Its just fustrating. Can anyone see a way forward?

[RedOdare]

well to be honest dialoge isnt going to work. The polliticans are all talk no action, i spent a lot of time before the election canvassing for a full tme service here. The only one who has contacted me since was a local TD the other day who told me he was going to bring us up during the dail debate. From reading the transcripts of the debate he didnt even speak. The public dont really care about the service, they were quite happy the last few weeks to ring liveline and the likes to vent their anger but to be honest the only time they will wory about the fire service is when they need them. As was pointed out the decision makers (county managers, directors of services and chiefs) are all money men. They are trying to run a buisness and bring the costs of operating that buisness down, so they arent going to listen to ways to spend more money from the lads on the ground. Maybe me calling for a strike was a bit heat of the moment.... we have seen down this way the last few weeks that marches will achive little, Shannon Airport and Ennis General Hospital spring to mind. Its just fustrating. Can anyone see a way forward?

If they centralised the whole thing they'd actually save money, who needs 37 Full Time CFO's? They could then use this to improve full time day manned services. All easier said than done.

[Chilled]

The powers that be have to get their heads around the fact that is just not feasible to run a fire service based around the parochial idea of county boundries. As mentioned earleir we have a ridiculous situation wherby the initial turnout for a domestic fire varies depending on which county you are in. No one expects if you live in rural sparsely populated area to have fire engines at your door immediately but you should expect two appliances enroute immediately if your house is on fire.

How can Wexford allow two appliances to be turned out initially to any building fire when Meath will actually lodge complaints with the control room if more than one is turned out to anything. Even if the county boundries remain surely as a start the PDA's should be standardised.

Can anyone tell me what the pda in Cork City, Galway City, Limerick City or other fulltime services is for a domestic fire?. It would be intersting to see if all the fulltime are similar.

Dublin for a domestic fire is 2 Pumps and a D.O. Inner city between the two canals add a TTL. If persons reported add an ET and an ambo. The Contol staff at least have flexibilty after that aswell to upgrade. Something with multiple calls that obviously is going well could have 3 pumps enroute immediately.

Upgrading the pda's for the retained services would at least be a step in the right direction

[RedOdare]

As we've all said it comes down to money. Full Time Brigades have the liberty that by sending an extra pump it doesn't hit the Fire budget beyond fuel costs of a few euros, which is bloody annoying as I'm sure Dublin won't charge Wicklow for assistance.

Obviously penny pinching can come into it with the Retained Brigades as the lads are getting paid for every call out so some CFO's are more like Chief Financial Officers when it comes to managing that budget for their patch.

[alpha]

Yeah, a lot of truth in what is being said. I think any talk of a strike would be a great diservice to both the lads that died, but I am very angry as well that this ever happened and I can understand why someone says a strike might bring things to a head.
Maybe it is true that retained lads are solving the problems by providing 24hrs a day cover with tiny numbers. I cant believe that you can expect to crew an appliance 24hrs day 7 days a week with a max of 10 men, its daft.
Whats worse is I cant understans the amount of stations that crew two appliances and apparently have less than 15 under their agreement, loopy altogether.

[Chilled]

As we've all said it comes down to money. Full Time Brigades have the liberty that by sending an extra pump it doesn't hit the Fire budget beyond fuel costs of a few euros, which is bloody annoying as I'm sure Dublin won't charge Wicklow for assistance.

Obviously penny pinching can come into it with the Retained Brigades as the lads are getting paid for every call out so some CFO's are more like Chief Financial Officers when it comes to managing that budget for their patch.

I'm sure over the course of a year the amount of turnouts that would actually require an initial two pump turnout in most retained services would not actually cost much. We are only talking about domestic fires and confirmed building fires. The bread and butter small fires, car fires, rubbish etc would make up most of the turnouts and would only be 1 pumpp turnouts. For a small outlay the response times of second pumps to fires could be greatly reduced.

I'm no accountant nor am i a fire planner but as a firefighter it seems to make sense to me. Maybe some one with superior knowledge in this area can refute my logic

[RedOdare]

Obviously the CFO doesn't have too much interest in co-operation. Bray are down crew so Greystones are now 2nd pump for incidents in Bray. So if you have another 3 pump in the morning that the Mark and Brian turned out to the response would be Bray, Greystones & Rathdrum while Dun Laoire full timers sit 10 minutes up the road unable to assist. Its not all about money, we need better management of resources.

[The D/O]

"we need better management of resources."

we need better management!!

by that i mean management that will actually manage and fight the fire services corner instead of reacting continuously to outside powers that have no actual experience or knowledge of fire, rescue and EMS operations and see everything boiled down to pounds, shillings and pence.

management keep saying the brigades best assets are their people...would it occur to them to see what ideas we have for improving the service...we do actually know what we are doing!

[afirespotter]

If they centralised the whole thing they'd actually save money, who needs 37 Full Time CFO's? They could then use this to improve full time day manned services. All easier said than done.

Yes, we do not need "37 Full Time CFO's".

What do they do all day ?

What qualifies them to wear the uniform because someone said earlier that they were mostly "Engineers". What do these so called "Engineers" know about simple building construction ?

What qualifications in building do they have ?

Have they investigated any real fires ?

The excellent and specialist Garda investigate the cause of ignition only. Was it arson or not ? that is the question. Result is maybe, yes or no. End of fire investigation, they look for arsonist if applicable for criminal prosecution.

What about the culprit, the person who provided the fuel and the defective building that allowed the fire to spread ?

What about the victims ?

What about the cost of a full time service ? Euromillions ?

This argument makes no sense whatsoever.

Another section of this site "illustrates" the basic wage of a full time fireman at 640 Euro/week.

Simple arithmetic (multiply by 52) gives the salary. 640 x 52 = 33,280.00 Euros per year. (less Tax etc. I presume) ONLY THE COST OF A BERTIE SALARY INCREASE !!!

The CFO (or Wicklow CC or someone) says 3 million euro for a full time service. Now divide 3 million by the salary of one fireman and you get the approximate cost of 90, yes 90 firemen, yes 90 full time firemen. We do not need 90 full time firemen in Bray or Wicklow. (I will check how many are full time in Dublin City, or Dun Laoghaire (for example) to compare)

These so called professionals do not know simple arithmetic !! THEY run the service !!

Only the firemen (full time or retained) actually fight the fires. The firemen are the indians that put out the smoke signals !!

Say 4 firemen and a driver = 5, per engine, for first appliance immediate attendance (followed later by retained members as back uo), on 3 shifts and allow 5 more for sickness, holidays etc. = 20 persons at 33,280.00 Euro = 665,000.00 Euro

Double this if you like, 1.33 million, where do "THEY" get 3 million Euro from, we do not need 90 full time firefighters in Bray or Wicklow for that matter.

Don't forget the reduction and deduction for the "retained men's" costs because they are replaced (augmented) by the full timers !

We do not want to listen any more to the hypothetical figures by people who cannot count !!!

Am I wrong or right ? Please correct me if I am wrong.

Comments please.

[yellowjacket]

Wow, where to start.

The report is online, have you read it? Surely you don't think the cost of employing a person fulltime starts and stops at their salary?

As for the officers, are you familiar with the qualifications for the positions, and indeed the subsequent training?

[Blackbolt]

Fire spotter, you forgot about the new engineers they would have to hire to "oversee" the new crews. Thats where most of the cash would go, to more like themselves. The country has a glut of engineers, all you have to do is to look at the building boom that was, the were so desperate for blocklayers that they were being paid more than the "engineer" that was checking their work. Its a case of looking after their own.

It was shown up down here two years ago. New footpaths were being put into a town here. There was 1.4 million set for the work. After it was compleated the report was "leaked" and it was discovered that .5 million went on the work ,and that an engineer had been hired to check the work of the original engineer and that an engineering company had been in turn hired to check his checking of the original engineer, confusing ain't it. That's where most of the budget for the footpaths went, .9 million of it, on engineers.

[yellowjacket]

So you don't think recruiting training, equipping these new crews would soak up any money? Have you read the report either?

http://www.wicklow.i...Draft%20_2_.pdf


As for the country having "a glut of engineers", have a look at a jobs website and come back to me.