Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and Wicklow's senior fire officer say a full-time fire service in Bray would not have prevented the deaths of two firemen on Wednesday.
They were responding to calls for a full-time service from Bray residents and the family of Brian Murray, a father of 15 and part-time firefighter who died while battling a blaze in a disused factory.
Mr Murray and 26-year-old firefighter Mark O'Shaughnessy were inside the factory when the roof collapsed on top of them. They were dead by the time their colleagues were able to pull them out.
Bray residents who queued to sign a book of condolence for the pair said that that there should have been more than a small crew of part-timers at the scene of the blaze.
Mr Murray's wife Mary, his brother Noel, and second-eldest son Darren (25) were adamant yesterday that having a permanent Bray crew would have made the difference between life and death. More firefighters would have responded to the incident, they said, and the firefighters would have then been able to contain the blaze from outside the factory.
"I want to know how many more will it take before they put a full-time service into Bray," said Ms Murray yesterday. "How many more children, how many more people, how many more families are they going to leave like this?" asked Ms Murray.
"[ The deaths] wouldn't have happened," said Noel Murray. "A full-time fire service would have had 20 people there and they wouldn't have had to go into the building. They had to go in because they had to contain the fire," he told The Irish Times.
"Two went inside and two stayed outside. If they had had a full-time service they would still be alive today," said Mr Murray yesterday.
Wicklow County Council's chief fire officer James Dunphy said that he had seen nothing to suggest that a full-time response would have had led to a different outcome on Wednesday. The debate about whether to have a full-time service in Bray was unrelated to Wednesday's incident, he said.
"It's a totally separate issue," said Mr Dunphy yesterday. "It has nothing to do with what happened."
"Nobody's been able to explain to me how it would have been different [ if there were full-time firefighters there]. I don't know how it would have been different and I'm the chief fire officer."
Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, who flew into Bray by helicopter yesterday to sign a book of condolence held at Bray Town Council, also cast doubt on whether full-time firefighters would have done things differently.
"These two men died to stop the fire expanding and from what I'm told by their colleagues they were very experienced, and on the face of it I'm not too sure whether the outcome would have altered whether they were full-time or not," said Mr Ahern.
Mr Dunphy also spoke of the decision to send firefighters into a disused building when there was no immediate threat to life. "It depends on the situation, and it's up to the fire officer in charge. There would have been concern about a number of factors - the spread of the fire would have been a primary consideration."
The factory is in a residential area of Bray but was unoccupied at the time of the fire.
Funeral arrangements for Mr Murray and Mr O'Shaughnessy have not been finalised, but are likely to be finalised early next week, said family members.