Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will make two points about the Lightfoot Solutions capacity report. I am familiar with the report as it was the first thing to land on my desk when I was appointed Minister for Health. First, it requires a multi-annual funding plan. Nobody in this House or working in the national ambulance service believes we can implement all of the recommendations in the Lightfoot Solutions report in one year, but what we can and must do is show progress year on year. Recently, I met the unions representing the ambulance personnel and I visited the national ambulance service co-ordination centre to discuss this. In 2017 more funding will be spent on the national ambulance service than in the current year, and this year we spent more on it than we did last year.

There is another point, and the Deputy mentioned it with regard to ambulance response times. The Lightfoot Solutions report is an external report by a UK firm, the first such report on our ambulance service. It stated that even if it were possible to put in place all of the required ambulance personnel and the extra ambulances, and they are not all available even if we had the funding, there would still be an issue in rural Ireland due to how our population is dispersed compared with the UK. According to Lightfoot Solutions, that involves examining the role of community first responders and the role of the air ambulance. We must be honest with each other on these issues. Even when we make the improvements to the ambulance service, these target times will require new ways of being examined.

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