Timmy Dooley (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Brian Lenihan, to the House to discuss the important issue of the level of ambulance cover in County Clare. I am particularly concerned about the level of cover in two areas — Scarriff and Shannon. The Minister of State might be aware that the Scarriff catchment area comprises my back yard, in effect. The facility that was developed in the area in 2003 is very good. There is a population of approximately 10,000 in the Scarriff catchment area, which covers 601 sq. km. The two closest ambulance bases are located 35 km away in Ennis and 40 km away in Limerick. The Minister will accept this is a considerable distance and that there is a need for enhanced cover.

The current problem concerns staffing. A good ambulance base was built but staff are rostered for just 19 hours per day, with no service from 7 p.m. to midnight. This is a critical period, particularly at weekends, and problems have resulted. There has been consistency in the incidence of accidents in the Scarriff catchment area between 7 p.m. to midnight, when, effectively, no service has been available. In the past ten days, a serious road traffic accident occurred within 200 m of the depot in Scarriff. Two ambulances were parked outside the depot but due to the lack of 24-hour rostering at the ambulance base, an ambulance had to be dispatched from Limerick. This resulted in an unnecessary delay in bringing a critically injured man to hospital.

I have the utmost faith in the ambulance personnel and the work they do — they provide a very good service. However, the reality is that the service is not provided on a 24-hour basis. I hope the Tánaiste and the Minister of State, Deputy Brian Lenihan, will put funding in place without delay to bring the east Clare ambulance service into line with that in the rest of County Clare and the mid-west, where ambulance bases are staffed on a 24-hour basis. I am aware that the mid-west ambulance development plan proposes to upgrade the Scarriff service to a 24-hour service. I ask that the Minister considers upgrading this service immediately to take account of the urgent need that has been established in recentweeks, given the incidence of several serious accidents.

I am also concerned about the situation at Shannon, the second largest town in Clare, which has a population of almost 10,000 people and experiences a further influx of approximately 8,000 to 10,000 individuals who come to Shannon daily to work at the airport, business parks and industrial estate, which is the largest industrial estate outside Dublin. The airport is the most western airport in Europe and is used as a landing base for aircraft emergencies in the north Atlantic.

It might surprise some to know that there is no ambulance base at Shannon and that the current service is provided from depots in Limerick and Ennis. The mid-west ambulance development plan proposes that an ambulance base will be put in place at Shannon but I have been contacted by several people concerned about the delay. In a number of cases, individuals due to be collected by the ambulance service had died by the time ambulances arrived. I am not suggesting that had an ambulance got there on time, it would have saved lives, or that the ambulance personnel at the scene did not do all they could. However, the incidents have caused a level of trauma for the families of the deceased with regard to what might have happened had the ambulances arrived more quickly. It would be best to deal with the concerns as quickly as possible by putting in place the ambulance service. I ask the Minister to expedite the establishment of the base at Shannon with the appropriate level of staff to ensure that no unreasonable delays occur in dispatching an ambulance to persons in need in the Shannon area.