On fire in Kerry without a brigade

The article below appears in today's regional Irish newspapers of INM.

By Michael Commane
These days most of us are up in arms with what has happened Ireland and how we let it happen and right under our noses.

For years upon years we were told what was best for us and most people accepted on face value what they were being told.

There is much lip service given to protecting rural Ireland. But life on
the ground tells a different story.

The West Kerry village of Castlegregory has just lost its voluntary fire service. The authorities closed the rail service in 1939. They, the superior caste, promised a replacement bus service. Today there is a once-a-week token bus service. A social and economic Irish joke. So what, you say, I don’t live in Castlegregory. But you do – we all live somewhere and this shortsighted madness affects us all in different ways. For Castlegregory read your town, your village, Ireland, today.

In the past everything was explained in terms of economic rectitude.
Today the great excuse is always tempered with health and safety concerns.
And that’s now what we have been told about our voluntary fire service. How really can we be expected to believe them?

Castlegregory is about 25 kilometres west of Tralee.

In 1983 as a result of a community initiative a voluntary fire service was founded. Over the years the service had been developed and enhanced. Up to very recently there were only a handful of voluntary fire services in the country. Ballylongford and Tarbert in north Kerry also had fire services.

They have all been closed down.

Out of the blue last August the voluntary fire service in Castlegregory received a letter from Kerry County Fire Service telling them that they were to close their doors.

The peremptoriness of the letter was shocking. It was a cold letter conveying a fait accompli. The Kerry County Fire Service believes that the voluntary fire service in Castlegregory has not the appropriate training and skills to deal with fires.

Kerry County Fire Service is only doing what it is told by the ‘experts’. It is obliged to obey.

Of the nine current firemen, three have breathing apparatus training and
certification, the other six received basic training with Kerry County Fire Service.
Kerry County Fire Service has maintained the station and equipment in Castlegregory over the years. The local community paid 90 per cent of the costs for the building of the station. The remainder came from a grant from the Department of the Environment. The site was given free.

Last year it cost Kerry County Fire Service approximately €3,500 to maintain the fire service in Castlegregory.

If the firemen in Castlegregory are not properly trained to top standard, then why can they not obtain that training from the certifying authority?

Surely it makes both social and economic sense to keep the voluntary service in the village. What value do the ‘experts’ put on a life?

They shut the rail line from Dublin’s Harcourt Street to Shanganagh Junction near Bray in the 1950s. We all know now that was appalling vandalism. It cost millions to restore just part of that line for the Luas tram service.

If there be a house fire in Castlegregory tomorrow there will be a delay of between 30 minutes and an hour before a fire tender arrives from Tralee.

If we had our voluntary service, a fire tender could be in place within a maximum of 20 minutes.

Health and safety requirements are fine but say little to someone who loses their life or house because of the length of time it takes for a tender to arrive at the scene.

It sounds mad and it is.

Had there not been fire tenders in place at Cork Airport last week, the
terrible tragedy would have certainly claimed more lives. The Cork service has been rightly commended for its promptness. Time is at the essence of fire fighting.

In September 2007 there was a tragic fire in Bray where two firemen lost their lives. As a result of that fire there was a review of fire services in the country. But simply to close down and shut up is never the way to go about improving matters.
There is something amazingly short sighted and blinkered about how the rulers of the body politic work in Ireland.

And what makes it all so frustrating is that nothing ever seems to change.

These days we are forever looking at what is happening in Germany. German auto manufacturers are using their native language to sell their cars in Ireland. All things German have now a brand appeal. Well guess what, right across Germany there are voluntary fire services. And what’s more, they take such pride in what they do and their communities embrace them in an amazing fashion. You see them in their uniforms at every social engagement.

Of course it makes no sense that Castlegregory should have to close its voluntary fire service. What maddens me most of all is that the ordinary people such as I are asked to accept and believe the lore that is fed to us.

It really is amazing how the ruling classes manage to continue feeding us such guff, bluster and humbug. They always manage to justify their actions.

Guess what? This is the year of volunteering and President Mary McAleese was celebrating the event at Áras an Uachtaráin on Saturday. The irony of it.