Mr. Ted Kenny:

A capacity review of the National Ambulance Service is under way. As I said earlier, we want to increase the number of ambulance personnel to between 4,000 and 5,000 in the next three to five years. To do that, we must ensure that the job is made attractive enough to ensure that people will apply for the posts. The only way that can be done is through the roles and responsibilities and the rates of pay attached to the new job descriptions. We will only see people applying when those aspects are finalised for intermediate care operatives, paramedics, advanced paramedics, leading emergency medical technicians, clinical paramedic supervisors, and all that is accepted and agreed by the Government. It will then be necessary to address issues such as meal breaks, extended duties, etc. I reiterate that I hope we will have good, structured feedback from the working groups this evening and that implementation processes will be put in place. It will only be when all those aspects come together, under the capacity review, that we will be able to entice people with the required skill sets into the National Ambulance Service and to expand its operations.