Pauline Tully (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Last Friday, in Ballyconnell in County Cavan, a woman in her 80s slipped on concrete steps. An ambulance was called, and it took an hour and 20 minutes to come. In the mean time, she was lying on cold and damp ground for that length of time. She had suffered a severe head injury and a broken arm.

What measures is the Government taking to increase personnel and resources within the National Ambulance Service, NAS, and is the recruitment of NAS staff affected by the HSE recruitment freeze? Are there plans to properly equip all ambulances to make them emergency ambulances? Are there plans to introduce a bridging programme to permit emergency medical technicians, EMTs, to upskill as paramedics? There is a shortage of paramedics, and a bridging programme did exist a number of years ago. Will private ambulances be required to assist the NAS over the winter period and if so, will they be given more time than a few days' notice and their contracts, as was the case last year?

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