Colm Keaveney (Galway East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am pleased the Minister of State acknowledges that there is more to be done. I imagine the Minister of State is aware that there are over 84 vehicles in the National Ambulance Service that have approximately 350,000 km clocked up on their odometers. When making comparisons we should not suggest that the geography presents a unique challenge. Let us compare the region to Scotland, which has a comparable challenge in terms of population, rural isolation and connectivity. Given its geographic area Scotland is approximately as challenging as the region I live in. For example, Scotland has a comparable volume of call-outs. However, it spends twice the budget. It has a significant cohort of staff, far in excess of our National Ambulance Service. I call on the Minister of State to come back to us in future and to be prepared to examine where we are going to go in this budget in respect of the recruitment of emergency medical technicians. I call on the Minister of State to follow through with the strategic plan that, we understood, was to be rolled out in what is called the Bermuda Triangle, comprising the area from Tuam to Boyle to Castlerea. I call on the Minister of State to map out a specific element of understanding of what is required to follow through with the commitments given by the Government. There was one broken promise when the Roscommon accident and emergency unit closed, but the second broken promise was that the Government did not follow up and invest in response times, emergency medical technician staffing, ambulance bases and a modern fleet worthy of the citizens in the area. The people there have a high expectation and believe the vehicles should be up to standard.

I intend to come back to discuss the matter with the Minister of State again. It is something that we must work on together. We are entitled to the best of public service investment and we want to see an emergency response unit as part of our ambulance service that is fit-for-purpose.

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