SIPTU says “the silence from Government” has forced firefighters to escalate their strike.
On-call members of the fire service first started industrial action on June 6th in a dispute over the low level of pay and restrictive conditions of the job.
In an escalation of that strike, all retained fire stations including those in Carlow and Kilkenny will “go dark” from 8 am this Saturday – meaning crews will have no internal communications with local authority radio call centres.
SIPTU members have also vowed to close one station in each county every week, if a resolution is not found by Saturday 19th August.
Aiden Owens of Carlow Fire and Rescue says further escalation is likely:
“It’s widely expected that we will be out to 75% capacity by the following Saturday, which means we’d only have, say, for Carlow and we’ve four stations, so we’ll effectively be down to one station covering the entire county.”
