“Barrier after Barrier” over Fire Station replacement docs, councillor claims

Cllr Barry Sweeny (FG) has expressed his frustration over claims that he is being met with “barrier after barrer” over documentation that he has requested, regarding the long running saga of a replacement for fire stations at Ballyshannon and Bundoran. 

It follows the responses to two questions that he had submitted for the April meeting of the Donegal Municipal District.

Cllr Sweeny said that he wanted to see what reports were needed prior to other fire station projects within the county being expedited, as well as the process of getting a fire station built, which he suggested, appeared to be “relatively easy”.

In order to access the appropriate funding, it was important that “Team Donegal” needed to work as a unit going forward.

He had asked for a copy of the proposals and documentation that was submitted to request Department funding for Donegal’s replacement fire stations between the years 1999 and 2007 as well as details of the proposals at that time.

Cllr Barry Sweeny of the Donegal Municipal District

In a follow-up question, he had also sought to get an email copy of planning documents and reports to the replacement of stations in the Donegal MD.

In a written reply, his initial question was responded to by the Emergency Services division of the Council.

They replied: “Plans, specifications, bills of quantities and estimated costs for new fire stations were prepared by consultants under the auspices of the Capital Projects section of the Council who were also responsible for the acquisition of the sites.

“Between 1999 and 2009, 12 fire stations were constructed in the county, ranging across 14 to 25 years ago, with the related files being of the same vintage.

“The Capital Projects section was subsumed into other sections of the Council in or around 2012 and any related hard copy files, would, if they exist, be in storage,” it continued.

“The Fire Service has no soft copies of these files. The body of necessary work to search any files and copy the requested documents would be very onerous and, in that regard, a more targeted approach would be beneficial giving, if successful, a more expeditious outcome which will be dependent on Services workload,” the response stated.

His second question, which was signed off by Garry Martin, Director Designate of the Municipal District of Donegal, indicated that fire stations at Killybegs and Donegal had been constructed some 20 years ago.

Mr Martin added that the fire service “will carry out a search of its achieved files to ascertain what documents, if any, exist.

“This will take a period of time and will be dependent on Service workload, but will be done as expeditiously as possible.”

Cllr Michael McMahon (SF) said that he wished to be associated with Cllr Sweeny’s remarks and urged that the need for the replacement stations be “pushed on”.