Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Keaveney for raising this issue. Before I reply I join him in offering my personal sympathy, that of the House and of the entire country, to the family in question on the tragic loss of their children. It was a traumatic and awful event and we deeply sympathise with the family.

The National Ambulance Service, NAS, provides pre-hospital emergency care and intermediate care services, by stretcher-based inter-facility transfers, to the people. Pre-hospital emergency care is the emergency care provided to a patient before transfer to a hospital or appropriate healthcare facility. In line with commitments to a better and more efficient health service made in the programme for Government, the NAS is progressively improving and modernising emergency ambulance services. Supported by the Department of Health, the Pre-Hospital Emergency Care Council and HIQA, the NAS is providing national management and leadership, particularly in the development of two national control centres, the deployment of advanced paramedics, the move to on-duty rostering and the dynamic deployment of resources within regions.

Response times around the country vary significantly, based on the nature of the area covered and the rural-urban mix. As might be expected, response times are longer in remote areas of the country. In this context, the NAS has developed a performance improvement action plan, focused on achieving an improvement in response time performance. The NAS continues to deliver the best possible performance with the resources available. One of the key elements within this plan outlines that the service provided is not a static service but deploys its resources in a dynamic manner. The NAS therefore works on an area and national basis, rather than a local basis. The dynamic deployment of ambulance resources ensures that the nearest appropriate resource is mobilised to the location of any incident.

The Emergency Aeromedical Service, EAS, which was initiated in June 2012, is focused on the western seaboard in order to provide aeromedical support to emergency ambulances in regard to transit times from a serious or life-threatening incident to an appropriate facility. The EAS involves the Irish Air Corps helicopter, supported by the Irish Coast Guard. Based in Custume Barracks, Athlone, the service has a dedicated helicopter with medical staff, and personnel to fly and maintain the craft. The NAS is responsible for patient care, which is provided by advanced paramedics. The Irish Coast Guard provides additional support to the EAS aircraft, using its new SAR helicopter based in Shannon. This helicopter is crewed by Coast Guard paramedics, accompanied by an NAS advanced paramedic where necessary. Accordingly, there is coverage of the entire western seaboard if required.

In regard to Tuam, emergency activity in the Galway area is reasonably static. Consequently, when Tuam ambulance station is finally commissioned, the NAS intends to use existing resources more efficiently to improve response time performance to the existing call volume. The NAS has been in continuing discussions with staff representative bodies about the introduction of tactical deployment of existing resources from existing ambulance stations to new locations such as Tuam. While such practices have been in place in other parts of the country for some time, Galway is one of a number of areas where this plan had not been progressed. However, this issue is now being progressed under the Croke Park agreement.

The NAS is committed to better utilisation of existing resources in a tactical deployment model so that Tuam ambulance station can service the north Galway area. It is hoped that this ambulance station will be commissioned and operational in the coming weeks.

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