DUBLIN firefighters claim that the record level of voluntary retirements in the service due to the controversial pension levy is now putting the lives of staff at risk.

Management expects up to 75 retirements by the end of the year, three times the normal level and a figure that would account for nearly 8% of the entire force.

It follows figures last month which showed that 579 members of the gardaí had retired or applied to retire over the same financial concerns.

But members of Dublin Fire Brigade – the largest full-time service in the country – say the main issue is not the number of staff who are leaving but the experience they are taking with them.

They also claim that at least the same number of staff is preparing to retire next year.

"Now when we go to a fire someone is going to die because the experience is not there," one source told the Sunday Tribune. "We are losing a lot of senior men with experience – when we go to a big fire they are there backing us up. District officers, station officers and firemen – we are losing the cream of the service."

Dublin City Council, which runs the fire service in Dublin, says that a new class of 32 students is currently in training in an effort to partially fill the void.

However, these efforts have been dismissed by existing staff who say they will be of little help in serious situations. "Thirty-two recruits? Some people are 30 years in the job," said the source. "From the day you join this job you are taught the very basics but when you come into the station that is when the real learning starts.

"A lot of [those retiring] have done 30-40 years in the Dublin Fire Brigade. We have served the city and to have the government come along and take this – it's a fair old whack out of your pension."