Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Moving from the model of an on-call ambulance service, under which one may have ambulance personnel sitting in their living rooms at home waiting for a beeper to go off, to a model in which they are in their vehicles or local stations and capable of responding quickly to emergencies is a very positive development. I made the point that there will be extensive consultation with the public, staff, general practitioners and all other health professionals before the final model is arrived at. There is no question about that.

One can carry out reasonably scientific analyses of populations and historical ambulance calls in particular regions. One does not expect that ambulances will be located on the top of mountains with population densities of two people per square kilometre. One can use a lot of past data to inform a decision on the optimum location for an ambulance. The Senator's contribution indicates that there is a great deal of speculation out there, with little basis in fact, as to what might happen. Let us see what the process involves. There will be consultation and the Senator may be surprised by its outcome.