Johnny Guirke (Meath West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Sinn Féin commends the tireless work of the front-line paramedics and operational staff who keep the ambulance service running without proper support from the Government. In a National Ambulance Service plan presentation, the service stated it has an urgent need to recruit additional staff as recruitment efforts are being surpassed by service demand. Dublin Fire Brigade has said that demand for ambulances is continually identified as being far in excess of capacity.

The National Ambulance Service currently has 2,000 paramedics and its workforce plan lays out the need to double the staffing composition to more than 4,000 by 2026. It also states that the ambulance service needs more than 1,300 more paramedics by the end of 2024.

SIPTU, not Sinn Féin, has said the National Ambulance Service is at breaking point. Increasing numbers are attending accident and emergency departments across the country which has severely impacted turnaround times, with crews having to wait hours on end to hand over their patients because of a lack of beds, as was the case in Drogheda when 13 crews were left treating patients in the back of ambulances as no beds were free. In my county of Meath, Navan is being bypassed and people are very concerned that they will wait hours to be admitted to Drogheda or Connolly hospitals.

Last month, paramedics in Navan said most runs were going to Drogheda with few or none staying in Navan. Having been seen by a consultant, patients were then sent back to Navan. That seems outrageous and must add to the ambulance service's workload. We need extra beds in our hospitals so that patients can be admitted in a timely manner which will, in turn, improve turnaround times. We need to more than double the number of paramedics in training and engage with qualified paramedics who are no longer working for the ambulance service to try to bring them back. Paramedics are burned out and exhausted, which makes retention critical to meeting these targets. Retention plans will fail unless there are more paramedics to share the burden.

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