Offaly fire service awarded prestigious accolades

Offaly County Council's fire and rescue service has been been awarded two prestigious accolades in recognition of its quality management and health and safety measures.

The service was awarded the ‘ISO 45001 Occupational Health and Safety (OH&S) Management System’ accreditation, which is the world's first international standard for occupational health and safety.

In addition, it received the 'ISO 9001 Quality Management System' accreditation by the the National Standards Authority of Ireland (NSAI).

The awarding of the two accreditations to the service was announced at an Offaly County Council meeting on Monday of this week.

Chief Fire Officer Eoin O'Ceilleachair explained that the occupational health and safety accreditation which the service received is a standard that "aims to provide a safe and healthy workplace for our staff, visitors to our fire stations, contractors, and other parties with whom we interact."

He said the accreditation provided a standard which allowed the service to continually improve its occupational health and safety performance, which would bring benefits including reduced workplace injury or ill health.

"All of our staff should be extremely proud of their contribution to achieving this accreditation, from their positive engagement with the process through to the implementation of new procedures and the use of new technology.

"Staff from across the service can feel their needs and safety are being taken into account and that a positive safety culture is in place," added Mr O'Ceilleachair.

Director of Services, Sharon Kennedy, added that the fire and rescue service had also been awarded the 'ISO 9001 Quality Management System' accreditation by NSAI.

ISO 9001 is the world’s foremost quality management standard, used by hundreds of thousands of organisations in over 170 countries around the globe.