People in Ballyshannon and Bundoran say they will stand united against any plan to close one their fire stations or merge them.
A public meeting in Ballyshannon last night heard that both councillors and the people who attended the meeting are very much in favour of getting a new fire station for each town.
There was a modest attendance of about 30 people at last night’s meeting in Dorrian’s hotel.
However, those who attended spoke at length in favour of having two new fire stations built – a new one in Ballyshannon and another in Bundoran.
All of the other fire stations in the county were upgraded in the last 15 years except Ballyshannon, Bundoran and Glencolmcille.
Now locals fear the county council wants to merge the two services and build one new fire station for the two towns.
The meeting heard that these two stations cover a huge area from Pettigo over to Belleek, Kinlough, Rossinver and down as far as Grange in North Sligo.
Fine Gael Cllr Barry O Neill told the meeting that the county council is to appoint consultants to review the future of the stations in the next week with a submission to be made to the Minister by the end of March.
One of the speakers at last night’s meeting was retired fire officer Bernard Drummond who worked in the service for over 30 years – he said retaining both stations is a ‘no-brainer’ – they are needed and carry out vital work including the ever increasing incidence of road crashes:
There was cross-party support for the meeting which was organised by community activist Valerie McNulty and attended by local politicians Independent Cllr Niamh Kennedy, Sinn Fein’s Noel Jordan, Fine Gael’s Barry O’Neill and Independent John Campbell as well as Fianna Fail Councillor Justin Warnock from Leitrim.
