Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 22 February 2023
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health
Ambulance Services, Recruitment and Retention of Personnel, and Response Times: Discussion
Mr. Robert Morton:
It is. This year our plan is to invest in a new facility in Cork and next year in Wexford or Sligo. The following year we will invest again in Wexford or Sligo - whichever comes last, as it were. Ultimately, we need to get to a doubling of our education capacity. We need to establish a driver training school. When we look at our limitations, they are around our ability to recruit.
In 2022, we have invested in an internal recruitment team. In 2023, we are investing in additional education capacity and starting to develop a driver training school. We are finding that all of these enablers are very limited but we are starting from a low base. It is not just a question of demand exceeding capacity but also of where we started. We had several years of austerity and a lack of growth in capacity while demand was growing in the background.
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