Serious concerns over Laois Fire Service staffing

Council members expressed serious concern about staffing levels in Laois Fire Service with work rosters deemed anti-family.

Cllr Willie Aird put down a motion calling on the Government to make the service more attractive to new volunteers through more flexible working arrangements. He asked that this be considered as part of an ongoing review in light of the level of vacancies.  

Speaking at the latest meeting of Laois County Council, Cllr Aird said he had been used to people approaching him about joining the service. “No one has come to me in the last two years,” he explained. 

He claimed the staff are on call the whole time and they need to be at their appointed station within four minutes, which he didn’t think was possible. “You might if you had a bicycle and you were going like the hammers of hell, or if you had one of these new scooters,” he remarked. 

Expressing concern about the future operation of the service, Cllr Aird said, “there isn’t one of us here that would go in at the moment and do the rosters that are being done in the fire service.”   

Noting how vital the service is, Cllr Aird said all of the training and equipment was no good without staff. He noted the retained fire fighters all had jobs and he asked how can they plan to do anything. 

He said the Fire Service was down between 10 and 12 percent in volunteers and the figure was rising. Cllr Aird said it was going to have an impact on the service overall if vacancies continue. 

“You are going to see this through all of our fire stations. I’ve been told, I don’t know, that some of our outlying stations had to close because they didn’t have the crew. There was people off or whatever the case may be,” he told the meeting. 

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Cllr Paddy Bracken said “it is frightening to realise the vacancies that are there and the hours that they work…I think there is nine vacancies currently in Co Laois.”  He said “it has to be addressed, either that or we will have no service.”

Cllr Ollie Cooney said “I think this is anti-family, if you have a young family this is a disaster.” He claimed the pay was “miserable” when you added all of the on-call hours up and he believed all of the stations are down in staff numbers. “As a family thing, it is disastrous because you can’t make plans,” he remarked.

Cllr Noel Tuohy claimed “there is lads work 35 days on the trot” and he said families have to come first. 

According to Cllr Caroline Dwane Stanley, a national review began last May and is due to be concluded by the end of the year. She agreed, “they are going in their droves because of the conditions.” 

Laois County Chief Executive John Mulholland explained that there were issues that he couldn’t discuss but he said: “any solution in Laois is going to be a countrywide solution.”   

He said there will be new proposals for all retained staff and he added that, “every Fire Service is facing the exact same situation where it is not as attractive a proposition as it was years ago.”

He said Clare County Council had conducted a national survey of firefighters last year. “All that is being put together in the review,” Mr Mulholland explained.