Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I agree with the Minister about quality of life, etc., but quality of life does not put butter on potatoes. Unless there are services, we will not be able to keep people in rural areas. It is a vicious circle. Without people, there are no services and without services, there are no people so there needs to be a minimum level of service. I do not want hospitals on every corner but I want to know that if I ring for an ambulance, I will not spend hours waiting for one. The figures released for the first quarter of this year show that response times in seven out of the eight ambulance regions countrywide were worse when compared with last year's figures. If we have all this investment, including in services, why are services getting worse? Why are people's experiences of services in rural areas getting worse? While quality of life is wonderful, what we need in the plan is a guarantee of a basic level of services. We need to build to deliver that basic level of services and a contract to access other services so that people know that if they need services, they will be able to get them.

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