Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will bring the Deputy's suggestions on engaging with schools and so on back to the National Ambulance Service and ask it to redouble its efforts in terms of local recruitment. I acknowledge that in spite of the fact the National Ambulance Service has these vacant posts, the ambulance service in south Tipperary has been doing very well. We can look at two of the main indicators that are important for patients in terms of response times, namely, purple calls, which cover life-threatening incidents in cardiac and respiratory, and red calls, which cover all other life-threatening emergencies. In 2023, the percentage of responses recorded within 19 minutes increased on the previous year from 65% to 70% for purple calls and from 37% to 41% for red calls. It is worth acknowledging the services are doing better. I will take the Deputy's suggestions back to see what further can be done to hire into those posts.

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