Halloween night was the busiest night of the year for most fire brigades around the country, with more than 900 calls made in Leinster alone.

Acting Assistant Chief Fire Officer with Dublin Fire Brigade Greg O'Dwyer said the service's full crew was on duty last night, with the entire fleet in operation.

He said that the regional control centre dealt with a total of 904 calls last night, most of which were Halloween-related.

The most common causes for call-outs of the emergency services were bonfires and injuries sustained from fire or fireworks, commonly injuries of the hands and eyes.

Mr O'Dwyer explained that 368 calls from the regional control centre were bonfire-related, and another 365 were ambulance calls.

Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, Mr O'Dwyer said that this was at least six times busier than the average Wednesday night, but on par with previous Halloweens.

Mr O'Dwyer said that anti-social behaviour was actually decreasing and the number of injuries are going down, as a result of organised events by local authorities and work by the gardaí in the run-up to Halloween this year.

In October, gardaí clamped down on the collection of items for bonfires.

"I can’t stress how positive it is to have the organised events. It keeps people in a safe environment," said Mr O'Dwyer.

The assistant fire chief added that in one instance, cars were driven onto a bonfire. He said this normally happens in the early hours of the morning when fires started to die down.

People will do "anything to keep them going", he said.

He said that the big danger with illegal bonfires was the combustible materials that people throw onto them, such as gas cylinders and aerosol cans.

"There is no safe distance" for these types of fuels.

But in Cork, the fire service reported a very small number of bonfire-related calls.

Cork City Fire Service said that last night was no busier than any other night. It said the Bonfire Night on 23 June was traditionally the city's busiest night.

Elsewhere, firefighters in Northern Ireland responded to 6% fewer calls on Halloween night compared with last year.

The Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service (NIFRS) described it as a "relatively quiet" Halloween night.

Between 6pm on October 31 and 1am on November 1, the NIFRS Regional Control Centre received 134 emergency calls and fire crews responded to 83 operational incidents.

This represents a 6% reduction on the same period in 2017.

Of the incidents responded to, 19 were bonfire-related.

Assistant Chief Fire Officer Alan Walmsley said there had been no reported incidents of crews being attacked.