Martin Browne (Tipperary, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Regional Group for bringing this motion to the House. I welcome the opportunity to discuss it because County Tipperary is particularly affected by the Government's failure to support ambulance services and paramedics. The HSE's standards require an ambulance response time of 19 minutes or less for 80% of life-threatening incidents. In Tipperary that is far from the case. I will praise the ambulance staff, including the paramedics, first responders and all those across the services. I warned about this in 2014 and nothing has been done since by successive Governments. The one common denominator since then has been that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have been in power during that time.

They are trying to ruin this vital service. The Minister's response to the Sinn Féin motion last night only reinforces that belief. The response reveals that in the south region, which includes south Tipperary, the percentage of life-threatening incidents responded to within the target of 19 minutes fell from 73% in December 2019 to 61% in December 2022 for cardiac and respiratory arrest, and from 47% to just 28% for other life-threatening incidents. For the west region, which includes north Tipperary, the percentage of life-threatening incidents responded to within the target of 19 minutes fell from 69% in December 2019 to 59% in December 2022 for cardiac and respiratory arrest and from 54% to just 36% for other life-threatening incidents.

While the Government sought to amend Sinn Féin's motion yesterday by deleting it, it failed to note that the Ministers, Deputies Paschal Donohoe and Michael McGrath, choose not to provide the funding needed to reverse the trend in ambulance response times. I know this motion calls for the National Ambulance Service bypass protocol on the use of model 2 hospitals and for medical assessment and injury units to be expanded. This would be welcomed but we need to ensure the NAS is given the supports it needs to shoulder this workload. It is not for it to resolve the unfinished issue of reconfiguration in the mid-west. That is the Minister of State's job. The Government needs to publish the multi-annual capacity and workforce plan to meet the needs of patients and improve the ability of the National Ambulance Service. It also needs to configure services so that the needs of people can, where appropriate, be addressed in their communities, thereby taking pressure off the service and emergency departments, such as at University Hospital Limerick, by increasing the use of our model 2 hospitals in a safe, clinically effective manner, and by listening to the 87 consultants in their call for urgent intervention.

We are past sticking plaster measures from this Government. The mid-west health region needs a serious multi-annual plan to tackle capacity for staff and patients, especially in light of the temporary closure of Nenagh injury unit, which is down to staffing issues.

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