Denise Mitchell (Dublin Bay North, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Emergency health services in Dublin are at breaking point. Front-line paramedics and operational staff have kept the ambulance services running with their tireless work but they have not been properly supported by this Government. The National Ambulance Service is not able to do its job to the level we need because it does not have the capacity. People now wait more than 20 minutes for an ambulance in Dublin and the east coast. The average response time is now 22 minutes but I know of cases in my constituency where people waited for an hour. Delays in hospitals also cause ambulances to be delayed outside hospitals in Dublin for anything from 40 minutes to one hour. The Government and the Minister have failed to support our front-line paramedics to keep up with the demand for emergency services.

The situation is now scandalous. All the figures show that our health services are going in the wrong direction. The crisis is clear to see in our hospitals as well. The average wait time in the emergency department at Beaumont Hospital in December was 17 hours. Elderly people aged over 75 years were forced to wait for more than 17.5 hours, on average, more than 2.5 half hours longer than in 2019, with people spending time on trolleys, chairs, in corridors and in corners. The Government must get its act together and implement Sinn Féin's plan to fix our emergency service and better support our paramedics, nurses and doctors. The Minister for Health should urgently publish a multi-annual capacity workforce plan to meet the needs of patients and improve the ability of the National Ambulance Service, the ambulance service in Dublin and our hospitals.

See this speech in context