Fire fighters in Tipperary will recommence strike action on July 26th – the industrial action had been suspended to allow for talks with the Labour Court.
SIPTU Fire Fighters across the country have voted by an overwhelming majority of 82% to 18% to reject the Labour Court recommendation which was proposed as ‘an interim solution’ to their dispute last week.
SIPTU Divisional Organiser, Karan O Loughlin says the retained firefighters clearly believe that the recommendation does not go far enough in creating the first step to rebuild the retained fire service.
All twelve of Tipperary’s fire stations are staffed by Retained Firefighters – these are staff who receive a “retainer” payment annually and other payments based on call outs or time allocated to training, incident planning and community fire prevention activity. In 2022 Tipperary Fire Services responded to 748 fire incidents and 530 other emergencies across the county.
SIPTU says Fire Stations all over the country are short staffed with dangerously low levels of crewing on call outs and that the staff continue to leave because the job is traumatic and stressful, demands high levels of commitment and availability for a modest and precarious income.
