Fermanagh Fightback!: O'Cofaigh seeks date for return of full-time fire service for Enniskillen

Saturday 6 June 2020

O'Cofaigh seeks date for return of full-time fire service for Enniskillen

Cross-Community Labour Councillor for Enniskillen Donal O'Cofaigh has written to the Chief Officer of the Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service to obtain a date when a full-time fire station will return to the county.

"I have written to NI Fire and Rescue Chief Officer Michael Graham to ask him when the full time complement will return to Enniskillen Fire Station.

"At the commencement of the COVID-19 lockdown, the full-time team based in Enniskillen was moved to Omagh. From firefighters themselves I understood this to be a short-term measure related to contingency planning around the pandemic. We recognised that there was relatively less risk on being dependent on part-time firefighters when most on-call firefighters were already at home but nonetheless it has been an issue that I've been closely monitoring.

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Given that now many more workers are returning to their workplaces continued reliance on part-time, call out responders poses very significantly more risk. Fermanagh is the most rural county in Northern Ireland - the distances involved can be huge. Reliance on part-time call out results in extra seconds and even minutes of delay for these workers to get to the station - that can mean all the difference. Like anywhere else, Fermanagh needs a full-time fire station.

"There was no explanation or even notice offered to the public around the original decision but even less why and how long this measure needs to continue.

Only a few months ago I had to raise a defence of our full time service in the council - proposals to slash full-time cover were being brought forward at that time because of NI Executive cutbacks - we can’t want allow even deeper cuts to come through the backdoor with Covid-19 used as the excuse!", Cllr O'Cofaigh said.

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About this blog

I've relaunched this blog - which has existed on and off for over 11 years. I've retained many of the older posts which may be of some historic interest.

I'm going to try better to maintain this as a means to detail what I've written - I may try and upload older articles where I can find them. In many ways for the duration of this blog my views have remained fairly consistent although they have certainly developed.

If you want to contact me in relation to any matter on this blog or to highlight any issue which is affecting you, please contact me directly. My email address is donaloc@hotmail.com and my mobile number is 078 1015 7926.

I ask anyone interested in getting active on these issues to join with me in building a party dedicated to revolutionary, socialist change, Militant Left.

The changing times we live in

The inherent consumptive demands of capitalism are everywhere pushing at the boundaries of the planet's finite resources. Unchecked, this threatens the viability of modern civilisation as we know it. It genuinely is a case of socialism or barbarism!

We live in a world where despite an ability to feed and clothe everyone, profit dictates that millions starve in a helpless and homeless condition with little access to medicine or hope of education for their children.

Globalisation is leading a 'race to the bottom' in wages, public services and working conditions to guarantee profits for the tiny elite who own most of the world's wealth and productive capacity. The public services we have came to take for granted are threatened with austerity and privatisation - opening the door to even more profit-making - yet all too few remember that we only won them through hard struggles in the past.

Moves towards deglobalisation, the rise in racism and xenophobia and a return to protectionism are tied to the rise of inter-imperialist rivalries as the losers in the competition seek to shut down their opponents and divide workers to further their exploitation.

In the face of these threats working people are once again mobilising - through their unions and politically. This global reality augurs an era of change.

There is an alternative. A global economy not subject to the dictatorship of the financial markets - a world where we are not divided but stand united to remould the economy to meet human need not the interests of the capitalist class.

Increasing numbers of people, in particular young people, around the world are working and organising to bring it to birth. But change will only happen when workers' collectively organise to build a mass party seeking fundamental and socialist change.

In Northern Ireland, the first steps along the path to an alternative must be built through establishing a cross-community politics rooted in the trade union movement to address not just workers' issues but everything from stopping the threat of fracking to saving public services and demanding real public investment, nationalisation and job-creation.

Working people in Fermanagh need to get involved and get organised to fight the cuts, ban fracking and oppose sectarian neo-liberalism offered by the green and orange establishment parties in Stormont.