Conference told fire service is 'low priority'

The fire service exists in a situation of "low priority, lack of focus and lack of competent leadership for the overall regime", the assistant chief fire officer of Dublin Fire Brigade has said.

Mr Patrick Flemming told a conference of the Institution of Fire Engineers that fire fatalities had seen no significant reductions over the past decade despite a range of initiatives and fire-safety campaigns.

Despite campaigns that every house should have a working smoke alarm and legislation since 1992 that there be smoke detectors in every newly-constructed house, Mr Flemming said smoke alarms were "present and working" in just 7 per cent of fatal fires attended by fire brigades last year.

Some 462 people had died in fires since 1994. The annual figure has remained steady at about 45, from 34 in 2003 to a high of 58 in 2001.

"Nearly all of these fatalities were in domestic dwellings which reflects the challenge facing us. Again, statistics for 2003 would indicate that males over 65 years of age living in rural areas are the highest risk group."

In 2002, fire brigades around the State attended a total of 28,099 fires, of which 9,467 were domestic - including in mobile homes and caravans. Over half of these (5,628) were chimney fires.

Referring to the "2002 Review of Fire Safety and Fire Services in Ireland", commissioned by the Minister for Environment, Mr Flemming said its recommendations were still being discussed at Department level.

He said there was no setting or monitoring of standards with respect to fire safety and individual fire authorities with "very limited resources are not in a position to provide a coherent national response". He said there was no research being done "with development to causation".

The Minister of State for the Environment, Mr Pat 'The Cope' Gallagher, acknowledged the importance of a modern and efficient fire service to the community.

"The overriding objective of which is to deliver a safer society through reducing death and injury, damage to property, and other social and economic costs arising from fire and other emergencies," the Minister said.