Morale among Galway firefighters at an all-time low

Relations between Galway’s firefighters and management are at all-time low as pleas from frontline officers to secure extra recruits, get paid training allowances and even have new uniforms supplied fall on deaf ears.

Risking an official rebuke, fireman Alan Chanter has broken his silence to outline a catalogue of serious problems within the Galway Fire and Rescue Service. He outlined their grievances in a letter to the Galway City Tribune.

As a fireman in the London Fire Brigade for 18 years and in Galway for 15 years, he believes the huge rift between officers on the ground and those in charge is down to the fact management have never had to respond to an emergency call.

“They think they know better than us and won’t communicate at all – they have said they don’t even recognise our union anymore. Yet they have never cut a person out of a car, they’ve never walked into a burning building, they’ve never dragged a body from the river,” exclaimed Alan.

The crew have to wait six months before they get repaid expenses forked out to undergo training courses. Uniforms which they pay for out of their pension are now three years old and tattered.

“We’re meant to get a new uniform every year but they won’t listen. We refused to wear them for six months and were coming in our civilian clothes. Some of us are wearing gear donated by other fire services,” he stated.

“We haven’t got bad equipment but all equipment is brought in by these guys with no communication. If we had communication we could talk about what works best at the scene of an accident or while out fighting gorse fires but they absolutely ignore us.”

The management is way too top heavy, he insists. For a force of less than 200 throughout the city and county, there are 12 high ranking officers, including one chief, four assistant chiefs, four senior assistant chiefs and three fire prevention officers.

In London, there is one chief in charge of over 6,000 firefighters. In Ireland, there are more than 30 chiefs over 3,500 firefighters.
For the rest of the firefighters’ complaints, see this week’s Galway City Tribune. Buy a digital edition of this week’s paper here, or download the app for Android or iPhone.