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Retained Firefighters to begin industrial action on 6 June with possibility of strike

Rolling work stoppages are scheduled to commence during the following week with an all-out strike set for 20 June if the dispute has not been resolved.

SIPTU MEMBERS EMPLOYED as Retained Fire Services firefighters by local authorities will begin a campaign of industrial action on Tuesday 6 June.

The union has said that the dispute is a result of “the failure of management to adequately address a worsening recruitment and retention crisis in the service”.

SIPTU Sector Organiser, Brendan O’Brien, said:

“The campaign of industrial action will commence on 6 June with members restricting their work to only responding to emergency calls. This will involve non-cooperation with training, drills and radio calls through the emergency centres being replaced by the use of mobile calls to fire service management.

“On 13 June a series of rolling work stoppages are scheduled to commence with the action set to escalate to an all-out strike on 20 June if the dispute has not been resolved.”

He added: “Almost 2,000 Retained Fire Service members are organised in SIPTU across 200 fire stations nationally. They are required to provide 24/7 emergency response and restrict their movement, at all times while on call, to within typically five minutes travel time of their fire station.

“Many firefighters are unable to take their leave entitlements due to staff shortages and they have also seen their incomes drastically reduced due to reductions in call outs over the last number of years and other restrictions imposed by the Fire Service.”

SIPTU Public Administration and Community Division Organiser, Karan O Loughlin, said:

“Firefighters first commitment is to serving their communities and protecting those in danger. It is an extremely difficult decision for them to commit to such a campaign of industrial action but they are left with no alternative if they are to protect the service and public safety into the future.”

“The SIPTU Negotiating Committee who attended talks with management on resolving the recruitment and retention crisis in the service, considered that proposals presented to it fell short of the minimum required to address the issue. The proposals also fall short of recommendations from the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage in relation to addressing structured pay in the service.”

She added: “This situation left the SIPTU National Retained Firefighters Committee, which met on Friday, with no alternative but to commence a campaign of industrial action following a ballot of SIPTU members in January which returned an overwhelming majority in favour of strike action.”

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    Mute Dave D
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    May 21st 2023, 12:20 PM

    All emergency service personnel should be on a different & better pay scale to the rest of the Civil service. They currently are restricted to general pay agreements based on standard Civil service work, but for the most part put themselves in harms way and work very anti-social hours & dangerous situations.

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    Mute Sean Partidge
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    May 21st 2023, 3:13 PM

    @William slevin: yeah the less than 1% of them suspended over the last decade. Give it a rest . The high majority of them working very hard and run down and are more often in the most dangerous situations. No disrespect to fire fighters they do great work.

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    Mute Dave D
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    May 21st 2023, 9:39 PM

    @William slevin: there are over 12000 Gardai and the majority do a great job. A decent wage is the type of thing that would prevent corruption. If you work full time & still can’t afford to pay your bills then morale is extremely low.

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    Mute Sean Partidge
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    May 22nd 2023, 12:41 AM

    @Dave D: no telling William. He had a problem with authority in all forms. Doesn’t like to be told has little to tell.

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    Mute Dan Dare
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    May 21st 2023, 12:27 PM

    We are at full employment so where will these people come from? Unless we import people who will be firefighters, which makes great sense… but so many don’t want that.

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    Mute Dan Dare
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    May 21st 2023, 1:58 PM

    @William slevin: There are more jobs that we can fill. The issue for individuals is skills. If the famine and mass emigration had never happened our population would be close to 30 million and that’s just people born here. Other countries handle large populations quite well. I don’t see the issue with a large population at all. We need more people anyway to cover the costs of running this country when we become majority grey. So either we have more babies or we import them. Nothing stays the same. When that happens, the minority youth of tomorrow will ask why didn’t you open the doors a touch wider when you could have? This is one of the great challenges of our times and fearful conservative opinions like yours are an impediment to the happiness of our descendants.

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    Mute Gary Kearney
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    May 21st 2023, 4:12 PM

    @William slevin: Jobs are shutting because they cannot get staff. Dublin City Council is short over 10% of the staff they need.
    If it is the same myth that the Brexioters said, then why did they rotting crops in the fields and farming industry kicking up over the lack of staff.
    So the work they do is required. When Thrump put in his ban on people from certain coutrins Silicone Valley complained. A lot of tech jobs arre filled by immigrants.
    Dublin Bus Bus Eireann are begging people to start with them.
    Meat Plants have hundreds of Brazilian Staff.
    Dont start ion the HSE.

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    Mute boredofitall
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    May 21st 2023, 4:30 PM

    @Dan Dare: Very few people are ideal firefighters, we need big rugby/American football types who would be strong enough to carry a 100 kg person down 10 flights of stairs without resting.

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    Mute Scott Milne
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    May 21st 2023, 7:32 PM

    We firstly need to look after all our emergency workers, that means we must pay them for the risks they take. Similarly we must push for our school leavers to be offered opportunities to work in whatever discipline they can excel. Government needs to invest for the future, and stop looking short term, ie. no more than 4 to 5 years. Migrants have a role to play but recruitment of these must be targeted to meet our needs into the future.

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    Mute The next small thing
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    May 21st 2023, 7:46 PM

    The low numbers have been coming for a while and some of it can be attributed to the need of people to commute long distances to work and therefore can’t become a retained firefighter. It ideally suits someone on the dole, they get to earn a lot extra and not lose their entitlements.

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