“I am calling on Roscommon County Council to undertake a review of the current fire cover for the greater Castlerea Area and to provide a full fire service based in Castlerea utilising Castlerea Fire Station.”

“I am calling on Roscommon County Council to undertake a review of the current fire cover for the greater Castlerea Area and to provide a full fire service based in Castlerea utilising Castlerea Fire Station.”

The Meetings Administrator read the following reply:

 In mid-2020 Roscommon County Council presented an Operations Risk Management Review and Area Risk Management Report on the provision of Fire Services in County Roscommon, as requested by the Elected Members. It included an assessment of the community risk and of the Fire Service response. This report was peer reviewed and approved by an independent fire services expert.

The report confirmed that County Roscommon has an efficient and effective fire service that complies with national standards and the Council’s statutory obligations under the Fire Services Acts 1981. The report showed that:

•            The County is currently served by 18 fire stations from Counties Galway, Longford, Leitrim, Mayo, Offaly, Roscommon, Sligo and Westmeath.

•            Nearly one fifth of the fire incidents (167 of 973 calls) in County Roscommon were managed by Fire Stations in surrounding counties.

•            The majority of calls to the Fire Service were chimney fires, false alarms, bog/gorse/forest fires and road accidents.

•            The travel times of fire brigades attending incidents in County Roscommon have and continue to meet the recommended relevant national standards.

•            Fire brigade activity has reduced considerably over the years. Back in 2007 there were nearly three times the number of fires compared to recent years.

•            This decrease in calls to the Fire Service is due to improved building standards; fire prevention work that has reduced the number of chimney fires and false alarms. Furthermore, oil spills are now being dealt with directly by other County Council staff instead of the Fire Service.

Castlerea Fire Station has been closed for over five and a half years. The Area Risk Categorisation remains low at E1 and in fact there has been a drop in primary calls which would ‘lower’ the Risk category even further. The average call outs were 14 per year over the last 3 years or 1 callout every 3.7 weeks.

The quantifiable fact remains with over five years of data that the four neighbouring fire stations in Ballaghaderreen, Ballyhaunis, Elphin and Roscommon Town are effectively responding to and managing all incident risks in Castlerea. The response times to all incidents to-date in Castlerea are appropriate and well within the National Standards required.

Primary = Fires or other incidents involving reported casualties or situations requiring rescue of persons.

Secondary = Fires and incidents involving vehicles (but not cars), RTA’s, haybarn/bog/gorse forestry or related property fires – non-casualty.

Tertiary = Fires and incidents which pose little or no threat to life and the property damage resulting is likely to be very limited e.g. chimney, car, skip and bonfires.

Responding to his notice of motion, Cllr Fitzmaurice said Castlerea had a growing industrial base and the fire cover area was now bigger than previously. He cited previous fires in the town and said there had been some fire incidents in the town in recent years. He disputed journey times presented to fire scenes and claimed the journey time to fire incidents in the town was now in the range of 24 to 28 minutes. He said the Council should look at new models of providing fire cover.

The members discussed the motion as follows:

·         Castlerea was the second largest town in the town. Insufficient consideration was being given to stakeholders or people in outlying areas over the nature of fire cover for the town.

·         There is not enough fire cover for Castlerea and all elected members wished to see a return of fire services to the town. The independent review of services did not produce satisfactory answers and a new review of services is warranted.

·         People living in the town and those incarcerated in Castlerea Prison need to feel safe. Fires are unpredictable and unforgiving and the station in Castlerea should be reopened.

·         Credit is due to members of the county’s fire service but it could take up to two years for personnel to be recruited and have the Castlerea Fire Station running again and West Roscommon is not served sufficiently by fire services.

·         There is an argument for a further review of fire services in the county - while the response times to emergencies may be acceptable, this is not the case in the event of any incident with flammable material.

·         When the Fire Station closed, Castlerea was left without a very valuable service. The town was justified in having a Fire Service to support the level of business in the town.

·         An improved service is long overdue for the town and Castlerea was the second largest town in the county.

The Director of Services Shane Tiernan informed the members that the decision to close Castlerea Fire Station was based on facts and the facts governing its closure, still remained. He said four existing fire services were already serving the town. Mr. Tiernan said it was important for people to realise the importance of having a smoke alarm installed in their homes and repeated that call out times remained consistent with national fire brigade call-out times. He claimed the average response times to fires in the Castlerea area was 16 minutes and noted that the local authority faced considerable challenges in meet recruitment requirements for the fire service. The north of the county was served by four fire stations, while the south of the county was not served by an existing fire station. The service, he emphasised, continued to comply with national call-out time standards.

The Chief Executive said it had not been his intention to close Castlerea Fire Station but he had to. He said that if a review of services were to take place now, the Council would be considering a Fire Cover presence in the south of the county, where none exists at present.

With the budget process beginning shortly, elected members had the authority to put money into the reopening of the fire service in Castlerea, and this was the responsibility of the elected representatives. He said the Council had tried everything to get a resolution to issues affected Castlerea Fire Station for three years prior to its closure

Director of Services Shane Tiernan said the number of fire service call-outs had reduced, noting that people have better facilities available to them to combat the threat of fire outbreaks. The fire cover for the county was satisfactory and said call-out charges in the past three years amounted to €27,000 for the Castlerea area. In respect of the fire service for the county, the service was costing the county an average of a €250,000 per fire station per annum.