Fire services - Sloppiness that could cost lives

IF the one million plus people who rely on Dublin Fire Brigade to come to their help in their moment of crisis have their confidence in the service undermined by a report that has uncovered poor management and training, then we would be foolish not to wonder if similar problems exist in the country’s 36 other fire services.

Ken Knight, one of Britain’s chief fire rescue advisers, has found that the structures and procedures in the capital’s fire service represented a threat to not only the public but the service’s staff as well. It goes without saying that this is unacceptable in a service that responds to 145,000 calls a year and costs nearly €120 million.

Avoiding the guarded language beloved of consultants and politicians, he put it bluntly: everyone involved, firefighters and the public, “could be vulnerable to a significant safety event in the future”. He warned that Dublin Fire Brigade’s training is ineffective. He also warned that because the service does not properly correlate data, it does not know how well it performs.

Identifying an issue that bedevils nearly all of our public service, Mr Knight pointed out that the senior management who should be confronting these issues are expected to retire within 18 months and that properly qualified successors are not in place.

This again raises the question if we can afford to have public servants – or anyone else for that matter – retire in their mid-50s. The cost to the exchequer to pay one person not to do a job and to pay another person to do it is unbearable today.

The great loss of professional experience, especially in an environment where poor training and development practices have been identified, is crippling too.

This situation also raises questions about the role seniority rather than merit plays in promotion right across our public services. As virtually every other sphere of human endeavour shows, meritocracies work best. Let us hope this issue is properly addressed in the inevitable, if overdue, reform of our public affairs.

The report was ordered by Dublin City Council just last February and that it has been finalised in three months is exceptional. The council has promised to implement it – though eight years ago a similar commitment was made after the publication of an equally scathing report by Farrell Grant Sparks Consulting.

That 2002 report highlighted a litany of concerns and suggested solutions. One of those was a Fire and Civil Protection Authority. Though this may not be the best time to establish a quango, it is possible that this authority might finance itself by reforming and standardising the country’s fire services.

Farrell Grant Sparks suggested that €3m a year would finance it. In any event, if it might improve services and safety then it should be considered.

Mr Knight’s report suggests that the 2002 study was a wasted opportunity. We would be very foolish to dismiss such warnings for a second time. We owe it to ourselves and, most especially, to the brave men and women in the fire services, to eradicate the management sloppiness that could end up costing lives.