Cavan fire stations now at risk under new Department reform

Seamus Enright

The Department for the Environment is planning to push through a number of measures aimed at reducing both the size and expenditure associated with the National Fire Service, which could lead to the downgrade or even closure of stations across the country.

Much like the structural reform applied to the shutting-down of up to 100 garda stations across the country - which came into effect earlier this year - it is understood the Department is seeking similar closures where it feels the area can be adequately covered by other larger fire stations.

There is at the present 10 fire stations across County Cavan: four in the west - Dowra, Ballyconnell, Belturbet, Killeshandra; three centrally in Cavan Town, Cootehill and Ballyjamesduff and three in the eastern area - Bailieborough, Kingscourt and Virginia.

The recommendations are made and outlined in the Department’s recently published technical policy document titled ‘Keeping Communities Safe - An Integrated Approach to Efficient Fire Safety in Ireland’. Fire services across the country have been asked to provide ‘risk categorisation’ surveys of their own areas. This will include an analysis of the population of main urban area, population density, annual demand level over previous three years, the percentage of tertiary incidents, the annual dwelling fire rate, road traffic accident activity and extent of individual Special Risks including Institutional, Educational and Industrial. The effective travel time from so-called Support Stations is also to be considered.

The report meanwhile recommends a number of shared, multi-authority service units with the local authority for the area, in this case Cavan County Council remaining on as fire authority.

From that, the existing National Fire Service would be split into 13 large population-based area authorities, and eight shared service authorities of which Cavan/Monaghan combined would be one.

Monaghan at this time has five active fire stations, in Clones, Ballybay, Monaghan, Carrickmacross and Castleblayney and the ‘Keeping Communities Safe’ report suggests “response should be based on nearest available appliance rather than administrative boundaries”, meaning stations considered surplus could be closed in the future.

However, Chief Fire Officer for Cavan Noel Burke says “no indication” had been given by the Department was seeking the closure of stations.

In Cavan alone significant investment has been put into bringing local fire services up to standard, including new fire stations at Bailieborough, Belturbet, Cootehill and Dowra, which were completed in recent years at a cost of approximately €2.3 million. Upgrade works to Killeshandra and Kingscourt fire stations have also been carried out by Cavan County Council, while sites have been secured and plans approved in principle for two new stations in both Ballyjamesduff and Virginia.

Mr Burke is adamant that all will be done to protect services provided locally, and that he has the support of Cavan County Council in this regard.?

'My opinion to keep every station open in this county is the same as it has been and that has not changed. It is dependant upon us that we have the structure in place which provide the best service we can and at the same time provide the quickest response time to call-outs as we possibly can. That includes having the number of stations we have retained. If you take away one this reaction time is lowered,' he said.

Mr Burke is set to meet with local elected members at the their July monthly meeting next Monday, June 17 when he is to outline the specific recommendations of the ‘Keeping Communities Safe’ report to them.