Closure fears ease as Tipperary fire station attracts new firefighter recruits
A Tipperary fire station that was in danger of closing its doors due to the difficulty in recruiting staff may be saved from the brink.
Earlier this year, Tipperary County Council’s Fire and Rescue Service said that Newport Fire Station was in serious danger of closing if they couldn’t recruit more firefighters.
“Recruitment campaigns have been ongoing since 2022 and Newport-specific campaigns intensified in 2025 but very low levels of interest are evident within the Newport and surrounding community. This has resulted in the overall numbers drop as existing members have retired and very few new people have joined,” Tipperary Fire and Rescue said previously.
However, at the July meeting of Tipperary County Council, chief fire officer John Shinners said that extensive recruitment campaigns this time yielded 18 new applicants.
“We made no secret of the fact that for the last number of years, we’ve been having difficulty recruiting in a number of stations, Newport being the worst of those,” he told councillors.
“We put a lot of work in there for the last three or four months, and we’ve had good news there. We had 18 applicants for positions in Newport Fire Station based on the recent recruitment drive, that’s up from zero recruits the last time.
“We have reviewed those applicants and we have nine people now that we would identify as worth putting money into going forward,” Mr Shinners said.
Despite having nine people who are suitable, he added that this doesn’t mean all nine will end up qualifying as a firefighter, owing to the difficult nature of the training and the job itself.
“It’s a tough training regime to go through, there will be a certain amount of attrition, but when we’re starting at nine, you’d like to think we’ll finish with four, five, or maybe six,” Mr Shinners added.
The positive recruitment news comes after Newport Fire Station sub-officer James McInerney told the Irish Independent in April that he could not understand why more people were not applying.
“You are going to have bad calls where the outcome isn’t so good, like you might be called to a road traffic collision where there’s a fatality, but there’s counselling there for anybody if they need it,” he said.
“I can’t see why people don’t join it, because it really is a very rewarding job, and you get to help somebody,” he added.
Newport Fire Station works on a retained basis, meaning that firefighters operate on an on-call basis.