Peter Roche (Galway East, Fine Gael)

That is excellent. I am not going to give our witnesses any grief. I understand the nature of the challenges within the job. I am heartened by Mr. Healy's opening remarks about the strides that have been made to expand and improve the service and the planning, going forward, which is critical. I want to register my appreciation for the NAS. Any time I have encountered ambulance crews, I have been impressed by their professionalism and dedication, which is quite compelling.

There was an incident recently in my own native town of Tuam. An ambulance was called but ironically, even though we have an ambulance base in the town and there were two or three ambulances parked there, waiting to go, none of them was deployed to the incident. Possibly an ambulance that was en route to one of our hospitals in the west responded to that call. I am curious to know how vehicles are deployed from ambulance bases. How is that managed?