TALKS Minister urges both sides in firefighters dispute to seek assistance of WRC

Efforts are underway to resolve the firefighters dispute over pay and conditions, with the SIPTU trade Union and Local Government Management Agency (LGMA) due to meet at the Work Place Relations Commission tomorrow (Wednesday).

The talks are taking place following the intervention of Minister Darragh O'Brien who urged both sides to re-enter talks under the WRC.

Ciaran Finn, SIPTU Union Rep for Meath said: "While we are hopeful this will be the start of the resolution of the ongoing action, any agreement must bring about a change in the job to give us all a better balance and quality of life, given the changes in the job over the past decades."

The retained firefighters in Meath and across the country escalated their industrial action seeking better pay and conditions by "going dark" on Saturday, meaning no internal communications other than life-saving information. This is in addition to the continuing rolling strikes which sees half of fire stations in the county closed each day, with the next nearest station providing cover.

In Meath, this means that on any given day, just three or four of the seven stations are available for calls.

However, if the dispute is not resolved by this weekend, an additional station will be closed meaning there will be just three fire brigades on duty in the entire county to respond to calls.

Ciaran Finn, explained the latest escalation, which came into effect on Saturday morning, meant they are staying off all radios.

"We are still responding to calls but as you can imagine the fire service in the county is fairly stretched with only three or four brigades available at any one time.

"From Saturday morning, this will be reducing to three stations. For the likes of a house fire or a road traffic accident, we would normally send two, so it is going to get tighter. Unfortunately, this is the way it is going."

Ciaran said reducing cover down to three fire engines would leave resources very stretched for a county with a population of 220,000.

"With only three fire engines available, it will leave the county very tight and it will leave vulnerable areas, and that is the last thing we want.

"We are just about getting by at the moment. If we go down to three pumps next week and there are two incidents, we are overwhelmed essentially."

Ciaran said the resolve of firefighters around the county remains very strong and they "just want to see this through at this stage".

"We have waited 24 years for a deal and whatever it takes we are going to make sure we are sitting down again and talking in the near future."

If the dispute is not resolved by 26th August, the next escalation will see another station close.