Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I assure Deputy Ó Cuív that the way we are going to make sure that people throughout this country, regardless of whether they live in rural or urban areas, get better access to ambulances in a more timely manner is by investing in the national ambulance service. That is what we are doing. The €7.2 million of extra funding in 2016 for the service will be supplemented by a further €3.6 million, including another €1 million for new developments. The first report I received when I came to office was the Lightfoot report. It was the first external international look at our ambulance service. The piece of my response which the Deputy has put on the record of the Dáil referencing the report says three things. It says that we need significantly more ambulances and paramedics, but it also says that even if we increase ambulances and paramedics - we are committed to doing that, hence the extra investment - in order to meet HIQA response times, because of the demographic layout of this country we are going to need to continue to see additional contributions from our community first responders. They are doing a superb job around this country, as the Deputy has acknowledged, but with the best will in the world, even as we continue to increase ambulances, as we are going to do, and continue to increase the number of paramedics, which we are doing, we still require community first responders to help support rural Ireland. It is not just rural Ireland but urban Ireland as well. There are three pieces to this - more ambulances, more paramedics and the community first responders working hand in hand. I had a very good meeting with the group from Connemara on this issue.

See this speech in context