Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I, too, am in favour of this motion. This situation has gone from bad to worse. A paramedic told me at a retirement do one night a number of years ago that he left the service because of the disgraceful call-outs and the utter confusion and ridiculousness involved. He was called out one day to leave Clonmel and head for Carrick-on-Suir. When he reached Carrick-on-Suir, he was told to head on to Waterford. When he got to Waterford, he was told to carry on to New Ross and when he reached New Ross, he was told to drive on to Enniscorthy. He was almost within five minutes of Enniscorthy when he was stood down. That is a journey of 100 miles. It is the triage system that is being doing over the phone, or whatever kind of triage system is being used to assess patients. He did not know that a man had fallen in the street in Enniscorthy and was waiting two hours for an ambulance. That causes such trauma and anguish.

The Minister and Ministers of State with responsibility for health should be utterly ashamed of themselves. They know better than anyone that this is going on. They just want to have the trick of the loop, however, that once a call has gone in at two minutes past nine, the ambulance is dispatched at four minutes past nine. It is a paper exercise. The ambulance could be 200 miles away. It could be going from Galway to Tipperary or Tipperary to Sligo. That is how ridiculous the practice is and it is burning out ambulances.

I salute the paramedics and their professionalism. They work long hours and then when they have almost returned home after a long shift, they get a call to go elsewhere. They are being blackguarded and bullied and their morale is being destroyed by abuse. The working time directive to give respect to people who are working in jobs is not being implemented. The system has failed utterly and so has the Government.

The Minister came in like Comical Ali - someone said he is comical every day because he answers no questions - and the Ministers of State lined up with him. I do not know what way to describe them. I better say nothing or I might end up at a tribunal. The way they are treating the paramedics is ridiculous and scandalous. Above all, they have contempt for their electorate in east Galway, west Galway, Roscommon and all over the country. It is nothing other than contempt for the people who voted for the Minister of State and Minister. I know they have got in on late counts but they will not look after the people. We need to get rid of this Dublin control. When we had local controls and when Tipperary had its own control, we managed fine and the ambulances did a good job with a timely response. Everybody was reasonably happy. Now, it is a centrally controlled disaster.

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