Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

Good morning. I thank the witnesses for their presentations. Listening to them all and reading the documentation we have before us, one cannot help but get a strong sense that there are major problems with governance of the ambulance service. It involves the two organisations here this morning, the HSE, the Department of Health and the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. One wonders where the buck stops. I am particularly interested in finding out more about the reason for issues of governance in the Dublin area and how exactly things work between the NAS and Dublin Fire Brigade. Who decides how the service will operate? I do not know where that decision-making happens.

The people who pay the price for this are people living in the Dublin area who depend on the State to ensure a proper, responsive, timely ambulance service. We are not getting that at the moment. The figures point out that clearly. The Irish Timesreported just last year that barely a quarter of ambulances were being turned around on time at hospital emergency departments. There is a logjam somewhere and we need to know exactly where that is. It was reported that 56% of delta calls involving life-threatening emergencies were not responded to within the target time. The majority of delta calls were not responded to. That puts people living in the Dublin area at serious risk. At this stage, given the number of agencies involved, that is simply not good enough for people living in the Dublin area.

The Brady-Flaherty report was completed in 2016 and we have not seen it yet. What undercurrents are going on here? There are clearly undercurrents which prevent people in the Dublin area from getting the kind of ambulance service they need. We need to get to the bottom of that. Why was that report not published?