Thomas Gould (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Regional Group for tabling this motion. Last night, Sinn Féin tabled a similar motion. This shows that the Opposition is united in recognising the crisis in our emergency services. In Cork and Kerry, response times for ambulance care have risen by over 70% since 2019. This puts huge pressure on paramedics and those working in the ambulance service. I met some of them with the Sinn Féin spokesperson on health, Deputy David Cullinane, in 2021, when they outlined the crisis they were facing. The situation is much worse now. Shockingly, 72% of life-threatening incidents are left without a response for longer than 19 minutes, which is the target that is given. This is way off-target. It is not the fault of the paramedics or the National Ambulance Service, but it is the Government's fault. The Minister of State is a member of Fine Gael, which has been in power for 12 years. The Minister and others in government say they are working on it, or, as the Minister of State said earlier, they are learning. I do not know how long it takes the Government to learn, but it should have learned by now. This crisis has been with us for some time. I am not making this a personal issue for the Minister of State but it is about this Government and Fine Gael's attitude towards healthcare, especially the ambulance service.

I have had to ring the ambulance service numerous times for constituents. I raise two particular cases. In one, a Sinn Féin councillor met a lady who was distressed. She was pregnant and had collapsed at the side of the road. She was alone and afraid. He stayed with her for almost an hour before an ambulance arrived. There was an incident where I was in Cork city with my family and a young woman collapsed. When I rang 999, I was told an ambulance would take over 40 minutes. Mercy University Hospital was four minutes away and Cork University Hospital was ten minutes away but all the ambulances were queued up, unable to offload patients because of the crisis we have in emergency departments. We had to put the young lady into my car to get her to the Mercy hospital because the ambulance service would have taken over 40 minutes.

There is a crisis now and the Government must act. I want to say to all those on the front line, the paramedics and ambulance service and emergency department staff, that we appreciate the work they are doing and it is about time the Government supported them.

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