Fire safety programme to bring Beaumont up to ‘modern standards’

Beaumont Hospital in Dublin is implementing fire safety improvements to ensure compliance with “modern” standards.

In October 2025, the Head of Technical Services Mr Peter O’Donovan presented a fire safety update to the hospital’s board.

“The hospital was built in the 1980s, the fire safety regime at that time was very different to the present requirement,” stated the presentation slides, released under Freedom of Information law.

“The starting point for Beaumont Hospital was a sub-standard condition across almost all aspects of fire safety, due to lack of investment over a sustained period.”

The burden of non-compliance “has been serious”, according to the presentation. It referred to an incident in 2018, which this newspaper understands was a minor fire in an uninterruptible power supply room that was safety managed.

The slides outlined that a fire engineering-led approach has been taken to “move the hospital in the right direction”.

The strategy involves several elements, including “careful application” of life safety system technology with a focus on compliance with standards for fire detection, emergency lighting, gas detection, fire suppression, and fire stopping.

“A key aspect for consideration for the future is to create a central fire safety register database including drawings, assets, etc, in order to ensure compliance and control into the future.”

A fire safety committee is in place as a forum to advance issues with senior hospital leaders in attendance. The Technical Services Department has also “actively engaged” with the corporate risk register process to highlight deficiencies.

According to the presentation, a minor capital submission would be provided to the HSE to fund continued door replacement, fire stopping, damper installation, and remedial work, etc.

While work to improve fire safety was ongoing, Mr O’Donovan advised that “a risk would always remain and it would remain on the corporate risk register”, according to board minutes.

A hospital spokesperson said: “Fire safety is and has always been a priority for Beaumont Hospital, and we are constantly reviewing and, where necessary, improving the hospital’s fire safety measures and systems. All buildings inherently carry a fire risk.”