Updated, 18.44

OVER A QUARTER of Ireland’s firefighters could be forced to quit their jobs if the Department of Social Welfare decides to cut welfare payments for part-time staff, a staff union has warned.

The Irish Fire and Emergency Services Association says part-time firefighters are being denied jobseeker’s payments because their positions as firefighters mean they are limited in the jobs they can take on.

As a result, IFESA has warned that the country’s 800 part-time firefighters – who make up well over a quarter of the national fire services, which are already short-staffed – may be forced to give up their positions.

The disputes have arisen because local fire services require staff to live and work within five minutes of their station, but welfare officers believe this restriction hampers their ability to find other work.

“If the Department was to take away those welfare payments, then [part-time staff] might as well be paid the minimum wage,” IFESA’s John Kidd said. “When doctors and nurses are on call, they’re on the half-hourly rate.”

Kidd said the problem had been raised by a part-time firefighter who had moved from Kildare – which is only serviced by part-time officers – to Drogheda, hoping to get a full-time position in the service there.

Social welfare inspectors in Louth, however, said that the officer’s part-time role in Louth meant he was not available to take on other employment – leaving the firefighter to lose their benefits, which were restored on appeal.

The matter was raised in a parliamentary question by Gerry Adams, who was told by Social Protection minister Joan Burton that the department could not introduce special arrangements for firefighters without raising equity issues for other claimants.

Burton said, however, that a group had been formed within her department to examine the position of part-time firefighters.

Kidd – who is running as an independent candidate in the Dublin West by-election – said the cost to the exchequer of losing those staff, both in terms of hiring replacements and in social welfare costs, was prohibitive.

It cost €15,000 to train each firefighter, he said, and removing a part-time staff member’s benefit would mean the State having to pay even more to each person in terms of social welfare.

By comparison, part-time firefighters are paid €1 an hour for each hour they are on call – a total of €168 per week.

IFESA has also called for a nationally organised fire service, which it says could reduce national fire expenditure by around 20 per cent.