Mr. Robert Morton:

In general terms, we have about 104 locations around the country which are effectively the starting and finishing points for ambulance crews, where they would park their cars, hang up their coats, pick up a vehicle and so on. After that, for the duration of their shift, they are a mobile resource. The aforementioned locations are reporting posts. Essentially, the allocation of vehicles is based on the shift patterns in each location and those shift patterns are determined by local demand. If we take the example of Letterkenny, there might be four crews while in Cavan, Monaghan there might be three crews. The vehicles are assigned based on the workload demand and the rostering demand, with a view to making sure that there is always latent capacity of about 40%. Of the 340 vehicles we have, there would not be any more than 180 or 190 in use at any given time. That is to make sure there are sufficient vehicles available for the oncoming crews. The oncoming crews need separate vehicles and we also have to have backup vehicles available.