Firefighters to strike over bid to break up joint service

DUBLIN firefighters are set to embark on a campaign of industrial action over plans to break up the only joint fire and ambulance emergency response service in the country.

Siptu’s Dublin Fire Brigade Section Committee met yesterday and formed a strike committee, after its members voted by 93pc in favour of strike action. It said it will announce its plan of action soon.

The union claimed that Dublin City Council wants to move its Emergency Medical Service call centre on Townsend Street in Dublin city centre to the National Ambulance Service Centre in Tallaght.

It has accused Dublin City Council of withdrawing from a forum set up to consider this decision last month.

Currently, members of the brigade at the ‘call and dispatch’ centre on Townsend Street take calls and send out ambulances to emergencies. They only contact the Tallaght centre if the brigade does not have an ambulance available.

The union claimed the big disadvantage for the public as a result of the relocation would be the fact the Tallaght centre does not have the ability to send out fire engines and ambulances at the same time.

All full-time firefighters are trained as paramedics and they fear that they may only be called on to tackle fires in future so their skills might not be fully used.

Siptu sector organiser Brendan O’Brien said members had given an “emphatic” mandate to take whatever action was necessary to resist any attempt to break up the service.

A Siptu document on the ‘Benefits of an Integrated Fire-based Emergency Medical Service’ says that Dublin Fire Brigade is the only organisation in the country providing a combined fire, rescue and emergency ambulance service.

It claimed such services are considered best practice internationally – and are operated in many major cities including Paris, Helsinki, Copenhagen, and Hong Kong, and most of the largest cities in the US.

The document said many cities in the UK are returning to the fire-based model for rescue operations because it is more efficient and cheaper.

It described firefighters as paramedics who are “multi-skilled and capable of simultaneously securing a scene, mitigating the hazard, treating, decontaminating (if necessary), and transporting a patient to hospital”.

A spokesperson for Dublin City Council said it had no comment to make on the matter.