Sinn Féin Dublin South West TD Seán Crowe has supported  calls for  Dublin City Council to look again at its decision to begin a costly recruitment drive to fill the 28 vacancies for the Dublin Fire Brigade.

Deputy Crowe believes that the Council should recruit from the Dublin Fire Brigade a recruits Panel which was disbanded earlier this year.

Deputy Seán Crowe said:

“I welcome the decision of Dublin City Council  and Dublin Fire Brigade  to fill 53 of the  80 vacancies in the fire brigade service. It is also good news that agreement has at last been reached on filling the bulk of the existing vacancies and that potentially this will save substantial amounts of money in overtime.

“It doesn’t make any sense to me  that Dublin City Council is now going to begin a costly external recruitment drive to recruit  28  fire fighters when it has already spent €300,000 on putting together a panel of suitable candidates for the Fire Brigade.  The new recruit’s panel was disbanded earlier this year and many of those who won a place on it are  ready, willing to work, and most importantly  qualified for the vacancies that are now available.

“Dublin City Council needs to think again about their his plan for a new recruitment drive and instead fill the vacancies from the former recruits panel.   This would speed up the process,fill the vacancies quicker and possibly save hundreds of thousands of euros that could be better spent on front line services”