Denis Naughten (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I compliment Una Smith and the "Prime Time" team for exposing the reality of what is happening at the coalface in our ambulance service. We have wonderful staff working in appalling conditions. I want to bring the Minister back to something he said in the House on 30 June 2011 when he stood up and promised the people of Roscommon that they would have additional ambulances. He stated:

The service was to be supplemented by an additional ambulance so there would be four ambulances covering Roscommon during the day and three at night. I can guarantee that. There will be extra paramedics available with a car to provide cover if all the ambulances are out of Roscommon at any given time. These are services that I can control and which I will deliver.

The Minister went on to say that "the abiding message I want to send from this House today is that I want to replace that which is not safe with something that is safe". The "Prime Time" report exposed the fact that there has been a complete depletion of all the ambulances in county Roscommon for extended periods of at least two hours on ten out of 14 days that the report analysed. An expert interviewed on the programme highlighted the fact that too few resources are available to the people of Roscommon to meet their needs.

Instead of addressing this issue, the intention is to spread these limited resources over an even wider area with one of the Roscommon town ambulances now to be relocated to Loughglynn to provide a badly needed service to the people of west Roscommon and east Mayo. We have already seen the loss of one of our ambulances servicing the county in Ballinasloe which has been re-located to Tuam for three days a week. Yes, we have a great air ambulance service, which is to be welcomed, but people get heart attacks and strokes at night and the only way the ambulance can be called in is if the paramedic calls it.

We have three nationally recognised ambulance black spots, all of which happen to be in the west of Ireland - Mulranny in Mayo, Tuam in Galway and west Roscommon-east Mayo. The Government is spending €1.2 million on the Tuam base, €470,000 on the Mulranny base and €70,000 on the Loughglynn base with no ambulances and no additional staffing being made available to service those stations.

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