Séamus Healy (Tipperary South, Independent)
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I thank the Ceann Comhairle for allowing me to raise the issue of the provision of an emergency ambulance service for the town of Carrick-on-Suir and surrounding areas. The current ambulance service, while excellent, is simply unable to meet the recognised response times to deal with cardiac arrests, heart attacks and road traffic accidents. I have raised this issue consistently and as recently as 14 April this year.

Carrick-on-Suir and its hinterland have a population of approximately 10,000. There are excellent health facilities in the town. The local hospital is St. Brigid's and the local health centre is located on its grounds. The town has the usual general practitioner service. I compliment the local voluntary organisations, particularly on their promotion of the concept of first responders and the use of defibrillators. The people of Carrick-on-Suir are now involved in this and they are to be congratulated on it. However, an emergency ambulance facility is still required for Carrick-on-Suir.

The lack of emergency ambulance cover based in the town puts lives at risk. At present, Carrick-on-Suir and its hinterland are covered by ambulance stations at Clonmel and Carrick-on-Suir but that is not good enough to provide the service required. Response times for cardiac arrest and road traffic accident patients are simply not good enough to give the people involved in such incidents a chance to survive. The response times are approximately 25 minutes.

Initial response times are approximately three minutes. There is a minute and a half for the response of the ambulance control staff in taking the emergency call, logging the details and calling the local ambulance to respond. The ambulance crew will respond within another minute and a half. Within three minutes, therefore, the ambulance crew is on its way to the incident. However, after that the response times are simply inadequate and leave much to be desired.

To give proper attention to cardiac arrest the latest response time is eight minutes. It is similar in the case of road traffic accidents. It is not possible to meet those response times in Carrick-on-Suir and its hinterland as it will take a minimum of 25 minutes for an ambulance to arrive from Clonmel or Waterford. That is not good enough. Ambulance staff are well trained. They are emergency medical technicians and have paramedic status. There is no point having ambulance staff trained to such an extent but unable to get to the scene of an accident or cardiac arrest in time.

I have raised this issue on a number of occasions and I will continue to raise it. I urge the Minister to respond positively. The ambulance staff and ambulances are available and the country is awash with money. There is enough money to locate an ambulance and ambulance staff in Carrick-on-Suir.

Tim O'Malley (Limerick East, Progressive Democrats)
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I am responding on behalf of my colleague, the Tánaiste and Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Harney. I thank Deputy Healy for raising this matter.

Under the Health Act 2004, the Health Service Executive, HSE, has the responsibility to manage and deliver, or arrange to be delivered on its behalf, health and personal social services. This includes responsibility for the provision of ambulance services. As part of the reform of the health service, a national ambulance office, NAO, has recently been established under the auspices of the national hospitals office within the HSE. The office has responsibility for the provision of pre-hospital emergency care nationally and is working closely with the pre-hospital emergency care council, as the body responsible for the development of standards in pre-hospital emergency care.

The council is conducting a pilot spatial analysis study of emergency services demand and deployment options. The study is examining how pre-hospital services are delivered and highlighting possible gaps in the delivery of services. The information obtained from this analysis, which is being piloted initially in the HSE north-western area, will inform decisions on the future deployment of advanced paramedic services, standard EMT services and first responder schemes in other regions, including the HSE south-eastern area.

Ambulance services to persons resident in Carrick-on-Suir are provided from ambulance bases at Clonmel and Ardkeen. The HSE national ambulance office has advised that the information obtained from the spatial analysis study will assist in its review of how ambulance services are to be provided for the people of south Tipperary and Carrick-on-Suir. The HSE south-eastern area is also reviewing the implications for the ambulance services in the county arising from the planned amalgamation of South Tipperary General Hospital with Our Lady's Hospital, Cashel.

There have been a number of developments in the HSE south-eastern area ambulance service in recent years. Additional funding was provided to facilitate the continued phasing out of on-call in the region. The HSE south-eastern area has advised that the elimination of on-call has been completed in south Tipperary which will facilitate further improvement in response times. Additional minor capital funding was allocated to the HSE south-eastern region to assist it with its fleet and equipment replacement programme which are essential prerequisites for enhanced speedy and appropriate care.