Sorca Clarke (Longford-Westmeath, Sinn Fein)

To move on to another issue that was raised with me, I will outline what a member of staff said to me in relation to defibrillators, specifically the ZOLL AED defibrillators. I have looked, and I can see that there was a Health Products Regulatory Authority safety notice issued in respect of the G5 in July 2024.

On the National Ambulance Service’s website, there is a troubleshooting guide for another defibrillator, namely, the ZOLL XA. It advises members of staff to contact a manager if these defibrillators are not working. That is on the National Ambulance Service’s website. What the staff member told me was that these devices sometimes malfunctioned, meaning secondary defibrillators were being carried on some ambulances in case the ZOLL device did not work. This member of staff said to me – I am not going to mention the town – that this happened in the case of a child. The device did not give the shock. A second ambulance came along and its defibrillator just happened to work. Is this accurate? How many of our ambulances carry ZOLL defibrillators? What action has the NAS taken to ascertain the effectiveness and safety of these devices?