Council asks department to review firefighters’ deaths

Wicklow

county manager Eddie Sheehy yesterday refused to apologise to the families of two Bray-based firefighters who were killed fighting a blaze inside a disused factory in Bray.

At a special meeting of the county council Mr Sheehy also survived a vote of no confidence in a meeting which broke up with sharp exchanges and shouting and chants of “Shame, shame on you all” from the public gallery.

Firefighters Brian Murray (46) and Mark O’Shaughnessy (26) died on September 26th, 2007, fighting the blaze at Adelaide Villas in Bray.

In July 2013 the council was convicted in the Circuit Criminal Court of multiple health and safety at work breaches and was fined €355,000, plus costs estimated at €95,000.

Earlier this month an inquest into the men’s deaths recorded a “narrative verdict” amid criticism of the council’s handling of training and communications. The jury expressed “serious concern” that the council had not carried out an internal investigation into what happened on the day.

At yesterday's special meeting Sinn Féin's John Brady said no internal disciplinary inquiry had ever taken place even though the council had pleaded guilty to breaches of health and safety legislation.

Responsibility
He said nobody had ever been held to account but the person with ultimate responsibility for the fire service was Mr Sheehy and he proposed a motion of no confidence in the manager.

Mr Brady was supported by Cllr Nicky Kelly, who asked how the manager could claim full co-operation with Garda and safety investigations when The Irish Times had reported that the three top people in charge of the fire service had refused to answer 1,300 Garda questions.

Cllr Barry Nevin produced council guidance for staff interaction with enforcement agencies, dated March 2013, which he said showed the council advised staff not to give interviews to agencies such as the Garda, safety and environmental agencies among others “because it may result in inadvertent implication of yourself or other council colleagues in a criminal offence”.

The guidelines advised that in the event of a serious injury or death, staff should refer any query "from any enforcement agency/media to your line manager unless a criminal defence legal advisor is present or until legal advice has been received at the very least". Mr Sheehy said the health and safety issues had been addressed by the council.

'Sole concern'
He said the "sole concern" of the council from the beginning was what went wrong on the day the men died, what lessons should be learned from the tragedy and how the council could prevent such occurrences in future. In response to this newspaper's reports that relevant personnel had refused to answer Garda questions he said the newspaper had been reported to the Press Council and he should say no more than that.

The motion of no confidence in Mr Sheehy was proposed by Cllr John Brady and seconded by John Snell. It was supported by Cllrs Nicky Kelly, Barry Nevin, Thomas Cullen, Tom Fortune and Irene Winters. It was defeated by 15 votes to seven. A similar motion of no confidence in senior fire officers Tadhg O’Shea and Joanne O’Connor was defeated by 15 to three with four abstentions. Cllrs Vincent Blake, Christopher Fox, Gráinne McLoughlin and John Byrne spoke in favour of a motion calling on the Department of the Environment to carry out a review of the entire controversy. This motion was passed.