Wicklow MP calls for ‘full transparency’ as external inquiry into oversight of firefighters launched

Wicklow MP John Brady speaking at the protest against the stopped fire service outside Leinster House in 2023.

John Brady, Sinn Féin MP for Wicklow, said the external inquiry into the installation and use of surveillance equipment on fire engines in Wicklow was a “significant development” and called for full transparency if the fire service and the public are to have confidence in its findings.

Mr Brady has previously written to both Minister Darragh O’Brien, whose department is responsible for both local government and the retained fire service, and Wicklow County Council Chief Executive Emer O’Gorman, demanding an investigation into what he described as a “blatant abuse of the privacy and well-being of frontline service members in Wicklow who not only put their lives on the line in the service of their community, but also a service that has lost members who have been killed in the line of duty”.