Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The time we have is wholly insufficient to deal with this particular item. Over a number of years, I have been writing to the Minister of State's predecessor. The bottom line is that the DFB ambulance service and its structure work extremely well, as my colleagues have outlined. What Fianna Fáil as a party and the members of the DFB are really concerned about is the removal of the delivery of that service from the DFB. The reason they are so efficient is because they manage it themselves. They are all trained paramedics and can work with any of the appliances. We saw it with the terrible bus crash in Dublin. Everyone who is on that rig is a trained paramedic. It works.

Dublin City Council and Mr. Owen Keegan have an issue with funding and that is all it is. The HSE is looking to amalgamate this. The DFB complements the HSE ambulance service. This is not a turf war issue. I ask the Minister of State to give a commitment on behalf of the Government that there will be no changes to the operation of the DFB ambulance and to pledge and commit to that. I ask the Minister of State to do that and to raise it with her senior Minister. I believe that the Minister, Deputy Coveney, should be here to answer this because he has big role in telling Mr. Owen Keegan to get off the stage and take his hands off the DFB ambulance service.

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