1870. Deputy Roderic O'Gorman asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage to provide the current number of retained firefighters serving across each local authority area, in tabular form; the number of vacant positions in each area; the numbers in 2022 prior to the September 2023 Workplace Relations Commission, WRC, agreement; if this information is not collated by his Department, the reason for such; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [62532/26]

1878. Deputy Roderic O'Gorman asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage to provide a breakdown of the number of fire fighters, noting whether they are full-time and retained, in each local authority area for each year of the past five years, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [62561/26]

I propose to take Questions Nos. 1870 and 1878 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.