Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

As I said, these are not isolated cases. The individual circumstances are obviously particular to these families, as are the tragedies that unfolded. We all know of different cases. Yesterday, there were more than 400 people on hospital trolleys and this is likely to continue. The Taoiseach's answer to this question yesterday was that things were likely to get worse and that we would hear of more terrible stories. Government Deputies have spoken about the inevitability that this will escalate in coming months. It is inevitable because of the policies the Government is pursuing but it is not inevitable that every day, we need to have 400 patients - 400 of our citizens - on trolleys on emergency department corridors or in hospital wards. It is not inevitable that we regularly have to have fewer ambulances available than should available.

The Minister stated that 20% fewer ambulances were available in that region than should have been available and that we had a death, more than likely, as a result of the failure of that ambulance to get there within the appropriate period of time. It took 40 minutes for that ambulance to arrive and yet the person was within five minutes of the ambulance station.

As the Minister pointed out, this is not unique to Dundalk. It happens in other areas, as we have known for the past five years. What will the Government do to ensure no other person loses his or her life as Dualtagh Donnelly did because of the lack of basic life-saving services in any region? Dualtagh Donnelly's mother Oonagh said, "I have that much anger in me, I feel my son died because of politicians' policies." It is hard to disagree with that. It is the Government's failure to deal with such issues, which are not isolated but are now systemic across Irish society, that is not just leading to the inconvenience of people having to spend a couple of hours on hospital trolleys or having to wait a couple of extra minutes for an ambulance service but is having implications for health outcomes, in some cases leading to people losing their lives. Does the Minister accept that?

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