Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I extend my deepest sympathy to the family of Vakaris Martinaitis, who died on Wednesday last after a tragic accident in Midleton. It was an indescribable tragedy for his family. It almost beggars belief that no ambulance was available to take this seriously injured young child to hospital immediately, as was required. Despite the HSE's contradicting this, the reality is that those who called the emergency services were told there was no ambulance and no ambulance arrived. The inadequacy of the provision of emergency services in east Cork is not a new concern. It has been raised repeatedly by the local community, by my colleague Deputy Sandra McLellan, by Midleton town councillor Pat Buckley and by other elected representatives for the area, including Deputy David Stanton with whom we share this Topical Issue matter.

Last March in the Dáil, the Minister for Health, Deputy James Reilly, claimed "improved training and better deployment through more efficient rostering ... will drive the improvement of response times in every region". It is very clear that response times in every region have not improved and that in areas such as east Cork there are major gaps in services. The Minister needs to intervene directly with those responsible for emergency services in east Cork to identify what now needs to be done. Throughout the State he must ensure that ambulance and other emergency services are of the standard required. I call on him to carry out an urgent review of the actual effect on the ground of the reconfiguration of recent years. The news - and often tragic news - coming back to us is that there are huge gaps and it is not confined to east Cork.

See this speech in context