Holly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

Recently, a constituent reached out to me. Her daughter had an epileptic seizure and she called an ambulance, but had to wait for four hours. That is not an isolated incident. Response times for ambulances are too long, especially in rural areas. Due to staffing shortages, the service depends on workers on non-rostered overtime. This issue is particularly acute in the south west. Incredibly, instead of finding a solution to this, the HSE management decide to slash the ambulance service across the region. For example, there was to be no cover in Skibbereen on Mondays and no cover in Castletownbere on Tuesdays - the list goes on. It is welcome that the Minister for Health intervened to prevent that, but the initial problem remains. The HSE has said it does not have the funding to pay overtime for these shifts and no extra staff are available to work them. Until funding and staff are provided, there is no certainty about the future of the ambulance service across the south west. This leaves people in danger and is extremely unfair on ambulance staff. Will the Minister ensure that the necessary funding is provided for the National Ambulance Service to be able to do its job?

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