Fire station closures set off alarm bells and ‘put lives at risk’

John Whelan

Fire personnel in Offaly maintain that 999 calls for assistance in badly flooded regions around Banagher and Shannonbridge last week were vetted, and dispatch of tenders declined due to efforts to cut costs and reduce the number of callouts from small stations. The emergency calls for assistance to aid with evacuations and chronic flooding came at the same time as the Taoiseach, Brian Cowen was touring parts of west Offaly to examine flooding in the Shannon basin in person.

The claim is the latest salvo in an increasingly bitter row over plans by the Council to completely close three fire stations in Daingean, Kilcormac and Banagher. Critics of the plan say that it is cynical that the Taoiseach’s home town of Clara has been spared in the fire service cutbacks. They also insist it will put lives at risk, especially in remote rural areas, which will now have to wait over 30 minutes for fire engines to reach them from the bigger towns of Tullamore and Birr.

Concerns of putting lives at risk rang all to true when Mrs  Mary Flaherty (87) tragically died after a fire broke out in the ground floor of her home at St Cormac’s Park, Kilcormac on Sunday week last, November 22, at around 10.30am.

“Our campaign to save lives and homes has become a reality and I am calling on the local authority to upgrade all three stations to operational status immediately. It’s not acceptable that we have to wait a minimum of 20 minutes for the fire service from outside the town to arrive when a fully manned station in Kilcormac would have been at the incident within 6 to 8 minutes. The Flaherty family are very disappointed with the service provided and appealed to me not to allow this happen again,” contended Kilcormac councillor John Leahy (Ind).

However, according to Chief Fire Officer, Eoin O’ Ceilleachair, the fire, which was confined to one room, was already extinguished by the time the fire brigade arrived and neighbours had removed the body of Mrs O’ Flaherty from her home. She was taken by ambulance to Tullamore Hospital where she was pronounced dead. The Fire Service state that the alarm was raised at 10.34am and that Birr fire brigade were on the scene by 10.50am.

The farcical situation is that Kilcormac does presently have a fire station which is manned by only two personnel. The fire tender was recently removed and the staff are deployed by a jeep, but are prohibited from responding to a callout unless accompanied by a unit from one of the larger stations. Fire service staff throughout Offaly have been allowed to dwindle over recent years from a recommended complement of 90 down to 58, leaving smaller stations dangerously understaffed.

Director of Services, Frank Heslin has recommended the Council completely close down the smaller stations on health and safety grounds, with savings of over a half a million euro to accrue. He has indicated that the fire service budget of €3.3 million is not adequate to keep all stations operational. Now a Fire Service Action Committee has been formed to combat the cutbacks.

Cllr John Leahy vehemently disagrees and has put in 53 questions to the local authority management challenging the soundness of their proposals.

“They have run down the service by stealth over the past eight years, refused to recruit replacement staff. This plan is penny wise and pound foolish as the estimated savings will not materialise when you take redundancies and additional callout costs into account. But more significantly, time is the difference between life and death, local knowledge is being lost and the service from Tullamore and Birr is being stretched too thin to cope with fires, flooding and car crashes. This foolish plan will not only cost more money but lives as well.”

Serving fire personnel agree. “Without a shadow of a doubt, lives are at risk here. It’s Keystone Cop stuff, stations are undermanned and while mobile phones are leading to the alarm being raised promptly this plan will result in longer response times. Two lads in a jeep can’t go out to a fire, it’s a joke. Eight is the required minimum staff and now peoples’ lives are being put in danger and I’d be sacked for talking to the press,” claimed one senior fire man in the county.

Offaly County Council will vote on the station closures plan on December 14^th.