Could a better resourced service have saved lives in Gort?

This article is from page 6 of the 2014-03-11 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 6 JPG

THE people of Gort are in a state of shock following the tragic death of two local people in a house fire n the town last Thursday morning. The victims, who have been named locally as 38-year-old Ben Whiteman and 65-year-old Nuala Sweeney, died after a blaze broke out at 2.50am at Tom O’Donnell’s Flats on the Rail- way Road.

Numerous tributes have been paid locally to mother-of-four Nuala Sweeney and to Ben Whiteman, who worked as a mechanic. The pair have lived locally in Gort for more than a decade but had previously lived in the Caher area of East Clare. Four units of the fire brigade from Gort and Loughrea attended the scene and spent more than three hours bringing the blaze under control.

While the incident is not being treated as suspicious, questions have been raised after the first unit of the fire brigade to arrive on the scene had to delay entering the building for 25 minutes until a back-up unit arrived.

The normal complement of firefighters in Gort is nine, but for several months the station been reduced to just four. The four-man crew had to observe the protocol of having a back-up crew to support them before they could enter the building.

Galway County Council, which administers the service, has been attempting to recruit additional personnel, but has had difficulty in securing appropriate candidates for the positions.

“Would lives have been saved, or would the building have been as badly damaged – and there is a shopping centre nearby – if Gort was fully resourced?” said local Cllr Gerry Finnerty (FF).

“I know the council have been trying to recruit firefighters; I’ve seen the flyers, but we just don’t have too many people who are willing to work in our town. We have lost one-sixth of our working population since 2006.

“I’m very concerned at the impact of the under-resourcing of the fire service is having in the town and in south Galway, which is a large rural area.”