Fire officers unhappy with new structures

A NEW national directorate to oversee the fire service was announced yesterday, but the proceedings were boycotted by full-time fire officers’ representatives who said it was unnecessarily bureaucratic.

The new directorate which was unveiled by Minister for the Environment John Gormley is to leave day-to-day operation of the fire services in the control of local authorities, while setting national standards to be implemented at local level.

The directorate is to engage through local “consultative committees” with those affected by the fire service, such as property owners, fire officers and local authorities, and is “to be open to guidance” from such stakeholders.

The move is designed to address the Farrell Grant Sparks consultancy report which recommended new institutional arrangements at central Government level to administer the fire service.

The Minister said his department will have a key policy and standards role while “oversight and implementation” are to be “driven through a management board and [the] consultative committees”.

According to the announcement from the Minister’s department: “The National Directorate for Fire and Emergency Management is to be a tripartite structure with a management board, a consultative committee and a national director who will lead the department section. The three components will operate as inter-dependent elements of a functioning national directorate”.

But many fire officers boycotted the Minister’s announcement, claiming the new body was “top heavy with bureaucracy”.

John Kidd, national secretary of Siptu’s full-time fire officers’ committee, said his members wanted the service removed from local authority control, to a single, straightforward control which would implement uniform standards.

“In the fire service there are 37 chief fire officers and 100 acting chief fire officers and little co-ordination on national standards and training,” he said.