Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

The officials will conclude their work tomorrow on whatever text emerges. That then goes to the Heads of State and Government. We will have a discussion on the text at the pre-European Council debate next Tuesday and Deputy Adams can have his say then.

Deputy Adams raised another matter of importance. Anything I say cannot bring back the deceased and I tender my sympathies to her family and friends. It is important to put on record that the national ambulance service confirmed that a 999 emergency ambulance call was received at 5.22 p.m. on 16 January for the Drogheda area. The vehicles stationed in the Drogheda area are tasked with being on call all of the time. Following the standard operating procedure, the closest available ambulance was dispatched at 5.23 p.m., which was one minute later, and it arrived at the scene at 5.40 p.m., which was 18 minutes later. The patient, God rest her, was then transported to Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, Drogheda, and arrived at 6.05 p.m.

The national ambulance service works on an area basis rather than on a local one and it is a dynamic and not a static service. Seven emergency ambulances operate in the area - two in Drogheda, four in Dundalk and one in Ardee. They are supported by ambulances from surrounding stations in the first instance and by ambulances from adjoining area. The response time in this incident was within the Health Quality and Information Authority target for clinical status one incidents, which is 18 minutes and 59 seconds, but that is of no consequence to the family of the deceased. Any confusion that may have arisen here, which may have led to the impression that the response time was considerably longer, happened because of a procedural omission. I understand that when ambulances arrive at an incident like this there is an on-scene arrival status button which is pressed to record the time of arrival at the scene, but that did not happen in this case. While it is important to note the response times, anything I say here cannot bring back the life of the deceased.

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