Fire charges raise alarm

THE high cost of availing of Clare Fire Services, particularly on weekend nights, is deterring old age pensioners, low-income earners and people on fixed incomes from making calls in an emergency situation.

Clare County Council has revealed it costs over €1,460 to cover nine firemen attending a serious incident for the first hour, during the hours of 10pm on Friday night to 7am on Monday morning. It drops to €730 for the second or subsequent hours.
It costs the council €5 million to run Clare Fire Service on an annual basis, half of which covers firemen’s wages and the local authority collects about €230,000 in fire fees over a 12-month period.
The council attended 1,100 fire incidents from January 1 to November 2009, including 171 chimney fires, similar to 2008 figures where there were 1,168 fire incidents and 185 chimney fires.
Clare FBD Insurance manager, Ide O’Keeffe, confirmed the maximum pay-out for fire brigade charges in a domestic dwelling is €2,600, while the homeowner has to pay the first €200 of any claim.
Home insurance premiums have increased on average by €16.8% nationwide up to the end of November and industry sources have warned that further hikes are likely next year, prompting fears that some low income earners will not be able to afford to renew their house insurance premium.
A Clare Champion survey of fire charges throughout the country revealed a huge difference in the way local authorities levy charges for their fire service. There is no charge for a chimney fire in Monaghan, Cork County Council and Dublin City Council, a €100 charge in Cavan and Donegal, €150 in Clare, €200 in Galway and Kildare, €300 in Limerick County Council and €366 in North Tipperary.
A number of local authorities, including Kerry and Kildare, levied no charge for a domestic fire, while Kilkenny has a flat charge of €70 per fireman per hour to the nearest quarter hour for all fire call-outs.
There is huge disparity in the way charges are applied for commercial fires and other incidents. Some authorities charge an hourly rate per unit while others apply a charge based on firemen’s wages plus PRSI with an overhead charge ranging from 15% to 60%.
Clare County Council levies the actual cost on people apart by charging the national hourly rate of €21.07 plus PRSI plus a 60% overhead charge, apart from chimney fires. This charge is quadrupled for the first hour and doubled for every hour after that from 10pm on Friday night until 7am on Monday morning.
SIPTU branch spokesman, Tony Kenny, said some people on low and fixed incomes are not calling the fire service, despite the existence of a full waiver scheme for old age pensioners and a 50% reduction for social welfare recipients for chimney fires.
Urging the council to conduct a review of its fire charges, Mr Kenny said elderly people are concerned they would be faced with a large bill if they called out the fire service to deal with a domestic fire.
Expressing concern about the lack of government funding for local authorities, Mr Kenny called for a system of finance to be put in place to reduce the cost of providing such a vital service.
Echoing this, Councillor Brian Meaney said the fire service is an emergency service that had to be funded and stressed people should not be afraid of calling the fire brigade because of the scale of charges.
Clare County Council deals with waiver applications by assessing personal circumstances, ability to pay and amount of charges. Director of services, Ger Dollard, pointed out no specific grants were received from the Government towards operational costs of the service and noted it is not unusual for charges to vary between authorities.
Stating the council operated a flexible and reasonable approach to its charges, he stressed anyone who felt the fire service is needed shouldn’t hesitate in calling out the service.
“Bills issued are based on actual cost. The retained fire service pay rates are set nationally and are the same for each authority. The council would be certain that our pay rates for weekend call-outs are no different from other local authority areas.”
He added that hoax calls have shown an improvement in recent years. “Work being done through the Munster Regional Communications Centre with telephone operators is helping to develop a system for hoax calls. Many calls of this nature are made with good intent.
“Even if the service was never called out, the annual €5 million cost would arise in maintaining a fully equipped service with trained personnel to be available to protect people and property in the county, which benefits the insurance industry,” he said.
Clare chief fire officer, Adrian Kelly, pointed out that while some local authorities charge per fire bridge unit, Clare levies its charges based on the cost of the actual number of firemen who attend the scene.