Fire tragedies form the background of campaign

THE history in Bray of tragedy as a result of fire is bleak and full of sorrow.

The fire service in Bray and across County Wicklow is ‘retained’, meaning that fire fighters are on call.

They may be at home or at work, or in bed at night, and when the pager goes off they have mere minutes to get to the fire station, get kitted out, and answer the call to an emergency. Last week, the eight members of Bray Municipal District made fresh calls for a full time fire service in the town. The population of Bray is over 32,000 and climbing, and recruitment is currently under way to complete a crew currently light on members.

By the time fire fighters Brian Murray and

Mark O’Shaughnessy lost their lives in a fire in 2007, eight deaths had occurred in the estate of Oldcourt alone. One more person perished in the estate since.

Brian Murray had been one of those to raise issues with the fire service, amid calls from many quarters for a full-time service.

Kitty Cassidy died in an Oldcourt house fire over the Christmas of 1988, alongside her children Lisa (9), Jason (4), Keith (3) and Graham (18 months) at Christmas time in 1988.

In 2001 Teresa Cahill (27) and her 13-monthold baby Chris died in another fire. Teresa’s sister Margaret spent the rest of her lift campaigning for a full-time fire service on behalf of her sister and her infant nephew. When Margaret passed away in 2016, her family picked up her placards and continued to fight.

Lisa Kelly (13) died in 2005. On November 29 she became trapped in a burning bedroom at her home after a fire broke out and died days later in Crumlin Children’s Hospital. David Costigan died in a fire at the estate in 2014.

In the month after Brian and Mark had died, the Dáil rejected a Labour party motion calling for a full-time fire service for Bray and other large centres of population. Labour TD Kathleen Lynch said then that a fire service is as essential as health and education.

However Minister of State Batt O’Keeffe said the provision of a fire service was a matter for the local authority and not the Government.

The Murray and O’Shaughnessy families then led a march in the town in October 2007, attended by over 1,000 people demanding fire service reform. The ‘Farrell Grant Sparks’ report commissioned in 2002 by then Minister for the Environment, Noel Dempsey, recommended a central fire authority, taking the service away from the local authorities.

Cllr Aoife Flynn Kennedy has created petition a petition on Change.org, with around 300 signatures so far at the time of going to press. ‘ The need for a full time fire service for Bray, Enniskerry and Kilmacanogue has been evident for many years,’ she writes. ‘ The brave committed staff of Bray Fire Service need our support now than ever.’