Wexford firefighters given ‘extremely limited’ information about call-outs — ‘We don’t know if it’s a fatality or a minor incident’

By Simon Bourke, Wexford People

All active firefighters in Co Wexford must respond to every call-out regardless of its seriousness. Furthermore, crew members receive little information regarding the nature of the emergency until they arrive at the scene.

These revelations were divulged at the July meeting of the New Ross Municipal District (NRMD) where Councillor Pat Barden queried why a run-of-the-mill motor accident had resulted in three fire engines being dispatched to his locality.

“There was an accident on the main New Ross to Wexford road, it was a two-car collision, but there was no serious damage done to the vehicles or their occupants,” he said.

“The fire brigade was called, there were three fire engines present, plus the guards and a mechanic, in all there were 24 people on the road. And this was a very small accident. Why were there so many people?”

Explaining the current protocol, a senior member of the Wexford County Fire Service said that all rostered firefighters are “mobilised to every incident” and that a minimum of six (with two vehicles) must be present for every call-out. If there are 16 crew members on duty then they would all be sent to the accident, he said.

The reason for this, he explained, was due to the control centre being located in Dublin.

“When someone rings in an incident via 999 it goes to a control centre in Dublin which deals with a couple of thousand calls a day, with six dispatchers.,” he said. “The information that comes to us in the initial stages is extremely limited - we don’t know if it’s a fatality or a minor incident until we get there. The details from the 999 call are not given to us.”

Upon arriving at the scene firefighters are then stood down depending on the severity of the incident.

Accepting that this arrangement posed concerns he said policy regarding call-outs was under review.

As part of the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) agreement retained firefighters secured a new model of service provision of structured time off with a 24 week-on, 24 week-flexible roster with four weeks’ annual leave per annum.

This model provides for the option, while placing no obligation on retained firefighters, to attend incidents on their week-flexible. This is equivalent to a 50 pc reduction in incident attendance obligations from the pre-WRC agreement position.