1722. Deputy Seán Crowe asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage the number of retained firefighters in each local authority area, each year for the past five years, in tabular form. [57075/26]

1869. Deputy John Brady asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage the number of mandatory retirements of retained fire fighters each year since 2020; the number of retained firefighters that have been recruited in the same period, broken down on a county by county basis; the recruitment plans in place; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [58973/26]

I propose to take Questions Nos. 1722 and 1869 together.

The provision of a fire service in its functional area, including the establishment and maintenance of a fire brigade, the assessment of fire cover needs and the provision of fire station premises, is a statutory function of individual fire authorities under the Fire Services Act, 1981 and 2003. Through the National Directorate for Fire and Emergency Management (NDFEM) of my Department, local authorities are supported in the provision of fire services by the setting general policy, providing a central training programme, issuing guidance on operational and other related matters and providing capital funding support for equipment and priority infrastructural projects. Emergency fire services are administered via 27 distinct fire service delivery structures, encompassing 215 fire stations managed across the 31 local authorities.

Under Section 159 of the Local Government Act 2001, each Chief Executive is responsible for the staffing and organisational arrangements necessary for carrying out the functions of the local authority for which they are responsible. My Department oversees strategic workforce planning for the local government sector, including the monitoring of local government sector employment levels. To this end, my Department gathers aggregate quarterly data on staff numbers in each local authority on a whole-time equivalent basis.

However, granular data, in terms of the number or grade of staff assigned to specific work areas in each local authority including in the fire service, is not collected and consequently is not available in my Department. The relevant information would be available from the local authorities concerned.