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RETAINED FIREFIGHTERS ACROSS the country have said they have “hardened resolve” to carry on their industrial action until pay, staffing, and recruitment issues in the service are resolved.
Over 2,000 firefighters are currently on strike.
Fire stations around the country have been operating at half capacity, with 50% stations closed and picketed at a time.
The service, which accounts for the majority of Ireland’s firefighters, has been facing a recruitment and retention crisis for a number of years, which has left stations nationwide critically understaffed.
“Stations all over the country are short staffed with dangerously low levels of crewing on call out,” said Karan O Loughlin, SIPTU public administration division organiser when announcing the strike.
Retained firefighters, as the name suggests, receive a retainer every year, and are then paid for drills and call-outs to emergencies.
In quieter counties, the lack of call-outs means that it is impossible for firefighters to make ends meet on this retainer alone.
Michael Farrell, a firefighter based in Ballymahon, Co Longford, says that as their station is one of the quieter ones in the country, they can only expect 60-70 call-outs a year. This leaves those in the station needing to have second jobs.
For many this can be a difficult task. Farrell works for an engineering firm, and while he is able to maintain the job alongside his work for the fire service, he says if he were in a role that was more time-sensitive in the business’ day-to-day operations, things would be very different.
“If I were a machine operator, or something similar, I wouldn’t also be able to be a firefighter,” he says.
While they were once able to operate a roster of one week on, one week off, the lack of staff has meant that has changed so firefighters are on call 24/7. This has serious implications for their quality of life, as they are also required to stay close to their station while on call.
Anthony Kirwan, based in Tullow, Co Carlow, says that this puts a huge burden on how his family navigate their timetables.
“If there’s anything that needs to be done outside of town, with the kids or anything else, my wife has to do it,” he explains.
“If she has to be out of town for any reason, I have to make sure that either my parents or my sister are on hand to look after the kids in case I get a call-out,” he says.
Recently, while two of his colleagues were on leave, the other five members of the station were unable to leave the town for three weeks.
There are guys that have been in my station for seven years who’ve never seen the place at full capacity.
In Longford, says Farrell, a minimum of 1o firefighters are needed to bring the county’s stations back to safe staffing levels. In Carlow, Kirwan says his station alone would need 12.
Stations are facing serious health and safety concerns as a result, and the potential for disaster is high, says Kirwan.
“It was a miracle that the fire in Wexford General Hospital wasn’t worse than it was. Had the fire happened at night for example, it could have been catastrophic.”
The issues that the service are facing today are not new.
At the annual Chief Fire Officers Association conference in 2018, then-chair, Dave Carroll said:
One of the biggest challenges we face is the state of our retained fire service and recruiting people within the service. It is challenging to balance the demands of being on call 24/7 with managing a life.”
If the issue then is a lack of staff, surely the solution is to simply get more?
Recruitment has been an ongoing issue for the service, and is a problem that threatens its long-term viability.
“It’s chronic, and it’s only getting worse. Because you have to live and work so close to your station, it’s not an attractive career for many,” says Farrell.
No one is going to move to Ballymahon to work as a retained firefighter under the present conditions.”
Attracting young people into the service, who may want a life and career that doesn’t necessitate their living in a small town, is a huge challenge.
While the options for that kind of life are available in some of the bigger population centres, says Kirwan, you just can’t find it in small towns like Tullow.
The recent Labour Court recommendations, which suggested an increase of the retainer from 24% to 32.7%, was roundly rejected by over 80% of firefighters.
There are some aspects of the proposals that could be worked on, says Farrell.
However, recommendations like a return to a week on/week off roster require a level of staffing that no station can reasonably achieve at their current recruitment levels.
In the last four recruitment campaigns conducted in Carlow for instance, they have only been able to attract one recruit. Even if he is able to pass training and decides to stay with the service, he is merely going to replace a retiring firefighter.
The best case scenario, with the fire service the way that it is, says Antony, is that they will see the fire station in Tullow close in the next five to 10 years.
The loss of these local stations, leaving smaller areas to rely exclusively on crews farther away in larger population centres, will have serious consequences for the future.
While Ireland was spared the wildfires that tore through southern Europe last month, firefighters in Ireland are on the front lines dealing with the effects of climate change and the adverse weather conditions that come with it.
Siptu’s Karan O’Loughlin says that retained firefighters are at “the coal face” when it comes to confronting the consequences of climate change.
“While we have seen a reduction in building fires in recent years as fire safety in these areas increases, storms, flooding, and wildfires are becoming more frequent. The effects of climate change are something retained firefighters are intimately aware of and getting worse,” she says.
A factor hugely beneficial to management in how the strike has proceeded, says Kirwan, has been the fact that July was Ireland’s wettest on record. Last year, fires were a much more serious concern with the heat the country experienced.
The fires that they have been seeing have been exacerbated by the staffing crisis.
A fire on Mount Leinster for instance, with the logistics involved in fighting such a blaze, will often strip the surrounding stations of their crews, leaving their local areas vulnerable should other emergencies arise.
They can often find themselves responding to a fire like that multiple times in quick succession.
It’s not uncommon for lads to come back from a call like that, get things ready for the next one, and be just sitting down with their family for dinner when they get another call and have to go again
The sheer volume of call outs that need to be dealt with by so few, leave many physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted.
As firefighters continue to man pickets across the country, the dispute shows no signs of ending.
Siptu has announced that following a meeting on 1 August, as a result of there being a “lack of political will” to resolve the dispute, the industrial action “will have to be escalated”.
“There is a window of opportunity now for engagement on a resolution before a serious level of escalation further entrenches positions,” said Brendan O’Brien, Siptu sector organiser.
The feeling on the ground is that neither the local or national government is listening, and so the resolve of those on the pickets has been hardened to “carry on a deliver for the service and the public”, says O’Loughlin.
The calls from firefighters include an overhaul of a system that is seen as massively inefficient.
“What people need to understand is that retained firefighters are in a very weak position. There isn’t a simple fix to the conditions that we’re facing, and it should be treated as so,” says Farrell.
The last thing that we wanted was for the dispute to escalate like it did, but we didn’t have any other choice. We live and work in communities that we serve, and we don’t want to let them down.
“But for there to be the cover there that they expect and deserve, then something has to change.”
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No study was really needed here.
Definitely no study needed, it’s already well known. I have a female gamer tag name, I wish I made a gender neutral one when I created it but I also don’t see the point in changing a gamer name I like due to some eejits targeting me for being a good female gamer just because I bruised their ego. Muting them is the best option for online gaming and deleting inappropriate messages as soon as they arrive in the inbox.
I’m a gamer, but as a bunch, gamers really are horrible. I only use my mic with people I know in real life. Otherwise I mute everybody.
@elaine You think that’s bad. You should see the male on male abuse. Don’t know how many times I have received online abuse from other gamers when you beat them. I’m not easily offended so I take it in good stride. Its great crack beating people online & they get all wound up LOL.
At least you don’t get pictures of other males bits and pieces though Graham, with obnoxious messages of rape. I know what messages other males get, I have male friends, male or female it’s not ok.
Wow yeah that’s too much. I don’t understand morons who do that. I’ll just send a pic of my knob to some random woman on the internet. Yeah she will definitely like that. Idiots. Did you report them for it?
Yeah I have through the xbox itself and emailing xbox support but to be honest I don’t think it’s taken very seriously, it’s happened a good few times to me. I’m 28 so I can let it over my head even when the messages are frightening but I do pity younger girls and boys who no doubt receive messages of that nature. I just hope parents are savvy enough to monitor contact that’s been made to kids on xbox live like their childrens activity on the computer.
That’s exactly what I was thinking. They don’t know what age the people they are sending the pics to are. Just block & report them I suppose. Your right Xbox probably don’t do a whole lot about it. I guess I’m lucky not to get them kind of pics from weirdos
But then again parents buy their children games that are over 15s or over 18s and they play those games online. You wouldn’t let your young kid watch a film with those age certs so why some let their kid play a game with the same cert? Gaming safety and responsibility should be thought to parents. haha this has gone off topic slightly. :)
Yeah parents definitely need to take more responsibility with the kind of games they get their kids. But also they could be mammy & daddies games that the kids are putting on when the parents are away. Your right this has gone off topic slightly. We need to finish this conversation over coffee :-)
In summary: 12 year old boys get mad because some girls are better than them at Call of Duty.
I’m on level 2 of snake. Chuffed.
Rule 16: there are no girls on the Internet.
The also probably live in their mothers basement and drink Mountain Dew by the bucket.
Its not a basement, it’s a command centre!!
Insert slow clap gif
Women gamers everywhere throw their hands up and say “we told you so!” Lol.
As I pointed out already on the Sen Higgins story; you get less abuse than men. Lol.
You say that the results of this study could be applied to other forums where people can act anonymously, like Youtube and Reddit.
Why is this the case? The research concludes that people who were doing badly in game were more likely to be aggressive towards females. What does this have to do with those sites? There’s no link.
Well I see online hostility towards women everyday but do hold out for a research experiment to prove it first.
It concluded that low status males have more to lose to competitive females. They are already struggling against better males in whatever task they are trying to complete and that is made all the more difficult by the introduction of females who may be better than them also. So they react negatively to this.
This could apply to many areas of society.
I don’t see online hostility towards women everyday.
I see hostility to both men and women online.
The link is that anonymity is common to the three. In a gaming environment, the sexist attitude can go unpunished and the same anonymity exists in youtube and probably to a greater extent in reddit, where throwaway accounts are even more common again.
As a generalised statement, I personally think this is a pretty useful study. Obviously people who openly abuse others online are losers but to gather evidence that they are worse at games which involve strategy is pretty interesting.
Halo might seem a simple point and click shooter, but better players are predictive & strategic. Proving that sexist flamers are effectively dumber at the games is an interesting statement.
Fozz, these two claims are pretty different.
The research shows that gamers tend to be more negative towards women when they have a *bad kill/death ratio* on a *videogame*. That’s it.
You’re not able to conclude from that limited knowledge that the same thing happens on social media sites, seeing as videogames and social media are fundamentally different environments (one being predominantly male, for one).
In what way can someone “do badly” on a social media site like they can on a scoreboard for a video game? They’re completely separate discussions.
It is interesting. I hope this insight can be used to help curb antisocial behaviour online.
Ciarán, you’re misinterpreting what the study actually found. It doesn’t show that the people who were ‘harassing’ (this is unclear – it says negative behaviour) women were worse at the game.
It may be the case that because the players were doing badly, they decided to take their anger out on the women they heard on voice chat. This doesn’t mean that they are actually worse at the game. The study is actually pretty careful not to explicitly claim that this is the case.
@Scarr. Exactly. I doubt the same eejits propose a toast to their opponents success when they loose to a male.
@malachi video games are anonymous social mediums too. If you want examples or the sort of vicious sexual aggressive abuse that you hear about being directed at celebs on twitter etc, check out the origins of the “Gamergate” scandal too.
Gaming may be male dominated, but aggressive sexism is a big issue there too.
Establishing and assigning traits to those who commit such abuses is the first step towards eradicating it.
The lessons which can be learned across such massive sample sizes can prove invaluable in fighting online abuse on all mediums. There’s a generation of kids coming who need to be taught how to interact on the Internet and we need the tools to direct the teachings.
Gamergate was to do with ethcial standards in video game journalism. Any harassment stemming from it was irrelevant to the goals of the movement and was condemned by those in the movement wherever it sprang up. Not relevant to what we’re discussing.
Woah, you say “massive sample sizes”? I don’t know if you’ve read many of these research papers but 160 odd games with 1-3 participants in each game is certainly NOT large. It is actually quite small for a study of this type.
Malachi, in halo, negative behaviour on voice comms can only really be in the form of harassment.
And sample of 189 incidents, ok, not massive, but certainly statistically significant.
Gamergate technically originated as journalistic ethics, but to claim that what happened there was related to journalistic ethics would in my opinion be grossly misguided. I wouldn’t dare claim that it was anything other than a shameful example of grotesque sexism.
Not true Ciarán. They never defined ‘negative’. It could simply be criticism, say “you should’ve killed him!” or “how did you lose the flag?!”, and I wouldn’t call that harassment. That would degrade and diminish actual harassment that is far more extreme.
186 participants is so-so. It shows a correlation, sure. But it really isn’t enough to making sweeping generalisations about.
Gamergate was about ethics in game journalism, and if you don’t accept then you’re just ignoring the facts. The movement resulted in multiple gaming websites *changing their ethics policies*. How exactly does a movement that just harasses women online get those kind of major results? I think it’s shallow to ignore the improvements the movement has made to the gaming industry.
Gamergate started as ethics and resulted in a debate, but more importantly it lead to significant harassment and abuse, specifically of females in the industry and highlighted the severe levels of sexism prevalent in gaming.
To ignore that and claim it was about ethics only is just…. unethical. In my opinion it’s to ignore the bigger issue.
As for negative, the severity isn’t relevant so long as a difference was identified.
Gamergate was a setup and no threat was made , she did it all for publicity. That yoke will say anything for attention. Gave out about violent games yet in picture’s of her game collection has dozens of violent games. She’s a hypocrite a fraud, and a clown.
Kids who don’t get their own way throw a tantrum. Shocker.
hmmm, comments open on this story but not on the callely or HSE stories how strange. Dear journal.ie why no articles about TTIP and the consequences for Irish citizens.
the journal PLOS One has way too much time on its hands
Played WoW for years and never saw or heard of female players getting abuse. We had a large (200+) friendly active guild which made weekly events for all types of players and everyone got along. Saying that, we rarely accepted anyone under 16 years old and put all new members on a months probation to see how they meshed. I miss the community big time but blizzard just diluted the game to a point where playing was dull and getting more directed to children.
As a girl who played WoW for years, I can confirm! Never had any sexist remarks, was part of a large guild too, well mixed in sexes, nationalities and 16+ (I quit when I couldn’t bring myself to play Kung Fu Panda btw!).
But I do think fantasy RPG gaming has a very different base – they attract a different type of player. Sure, you get your a$$holes, but it’s not as much of a pissing contest as FPS games. The abuse I’ve heard while my hubby plays CoD is unreal, if it was me I wouldnt open my mouth either!
So if a player is doing badly, they are more likely to lash out at other players. This is the findings of this study? Am I reading this right?
Oh, wait, I’m getting it wrong. If a MALE player is doing badly, HE is more likely to lash out at FEMALE players. I wonder what the stats were on women who play badly lashing out? Oh, they didn’t bother with that did they. No, they wouldn’t fit the narrative. I suppose it is progressive in that sense that the word “misogyny”, “basement-dwelling neckbeard” or “worst than ISIS” aren’t mentioned in this article. And Halo 3, really?
Reign it in!
“A total of 189 players spoke, all of them male. That’s not to say that women did not play, just that they did not speak…”
So no data on female reactions IS their data. Read sh*t properly before you go off on one!!
I just took one look at the headline and thought ‘Irish male bashing article’.
I played sport my entire life and have got abused tons of times so I have a thick skin but I play FIFA and world of tanks and the abuse I get is unreal. I hammer 95% of people I play on FIFA, I actually stopped playing on consoles because of the abuse , as on the PC you can’t message or contact someone and it tends to be more mature with FIFA anyway.
The other night in world of tanks in a mode called clan wars, a match was ending in a draw and because we didn’t let them win we got told to die and how we were the off spring of rape, get cancer etc. Really sick shit.
You basically do not need a study to find out these people need a life. as if you interacted like that in real life you would be hospitalized.
Tone policing… … really? Very progressive.
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