Payment of €500 fire brigade fee ‘very slow’

Dublin Fire Brigade has admitted payment of a new €500 call-out fee introduced in January is “very slow” with just 44 invoices paid, out of the 305 issued.

The call-out charge was introduced on Jan 16, with a fee of €500 applied for the first hour and an hourly rate of €485 for the second and subsequent hours, with Dublin City Council claiming it was being introduced to maintain services on tighter budgets.

Yesterday, Clare Crosbie, a senior staff officer overseeing the issuing of charge notices, said of the rate of payment: “It would be considered to be very slow.”

Approximately 22 people have also successfully appealed the imposition of the fee and have had it waived, either on the basis of the circumstances of the call-out, or the fact that they cannot pay it.

More appeals are pending and Ms Crosbie said: “The outstanding ones will not be written off — they will be collected.

“It is a new concept; it is a new idea. Some people are surprised to receive an invoice; some people put it through insurance companies and the insurance companies might not have settled it yet.”

She said other people may have appealed the issuing of an invoice on the basis that the bill was sent out to an incorrect address. No one is charged for a malicious call-out.

Dublin Fire Brigade, one of the busiest in the country, was one of the last brigades to introduce a call- out fee but has been charging a fee on commercial premises since 2003.

Ahead of the introduction of the fee there were warnings from Dublin firefighters’ representatives in SIPTU that it could cost lives as some people wary of being charged might delay calling the fire services.