Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for his powerful and relentless advocacy of healthcare services for the people in his constituency, including Youghal. He has raised the ambulance training college with me probably every week over the past few years. I am delighted to be able to confirm in the Dáil today that the St. Raphael's site in Youghal is the preferred location for the permanent ambulance training college. That will be very welcome news to the people in Youghal. The facility will be wonderful for our National Ambulance Service and Youghal.

The service trains the majority of its paramedic workforce through its own college, the National Ambulance Service College. The BSc paramedic studies programme is a three-year programme delivered through the college, and the college runs it in conjunction with its academic partner, UCC. The BSc programme is taught out of three NAS college campuses, located in Tallaght, Ballinasloe and Tullamore. The NAS currently has capacity to teach around 200 student paramedics every year. Last year saw 196 students accepted into the programme, which was fantastic.

The ambulance service has plans to establish a fourth campus, which is the one the Deputy and I have spoken about many times. It is to be located in Cork and is to increase recruitment capacity into our National Ambulance Service. A project to develop the fourth training campus in Cork is included in the 2024 HSE capital plan. I allocated funding for it this year to be progressed under the plan. New funding announced as part of budget 2025 will see a very significant additional allocation to the National Ambulance Service, which I might come back to in a later response.

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