Paul Kehoe (Wexford, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy. I would have liked to have included much more in my opening statement but it would have gone on for at least 20 minutes or even a half hour if I included everything. The Deputy mentioned the air ambulance. I made everybody aware that there is a challenge in the Air Corps with pilot retention. I announced a number of initiatives in and around this area, including the pilot retention scheme suggested by the independent pay commission. It is one of the projects that has been implemented. The closing date for that is tomorrow and we will have to wait to see how many people have applied. I will not say how many have or have not before that. The closing date is tomorrow and I will be able to answer the question after the closing date. There have been negotiations and some further questions have been put by people interested in joining the pilot retention scheme. A number of those queries were answered by my Department earlier this week and my officials have been in discussions with the general officer commanding, GOC, on the matter.

It came to my attention in late September or October that there would be a challenge with the air ambulance service. It also came to my attention last year that there would be a challenge but we were able to keep the service going. A proposal came from military management and the GOC Air Corps that if we were able to take this specific air ambulance helicopter out of service for four days in November, December, January and February, it would be able to restore the ongoing service after that. When that came to my attention, one of my first actions was to contact the Minister for Health, Deputy Harris. I spoke to the Minister at length about this and my officials in the Department of Defence were in contact with officials in the Department of Health. We had a specific meeting about this and we decided that we would contact people in the community helicopter service sector, who stated they would be able to provide a service for the four days in November, December, January and February.

We selected the four-day period in November, December, January and February because of daylight hours and it is the time of least numbers of call-outs. This may result from fog and bad weather, for example. We selected this time instead of June, July, August and September, for example, as we considered when this would have the least impact. It was decided that the four winter months would see the least impact in that regard. I reassure the Deputy and this committee, as well as anybody listening today, that the service will be up and running on 1 March 2020. I am delighted that we have the backup of the Coast Guard as well and this was always in the agreement originally signed by the Government.

The air ambulance had been sought for years and in the very lean period in 2011 we were able to introduce the service and it was put on a permanent basis in 2015. I disagree with the Deputy on this issue, as this was sought before-----