Keith Swanick (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Since the Seanad commenced its sitting this morning, over 200 calls will have been received by the emergency call answering service, which is responsible for all 999 and 112 calls. In 2015, it received 1.8 million calls, an average of 5,100 per day. The reason I raise this issue today is because Hallowe'en night is only days away and, unfortunately, has become a byword for stories about attacks on our emergency services. I ask the Leader to consider scheduling a debate on our emergency services and how they are protected in carrying out their work on our behalf. It is not just a Hallowe'en problem. In May, a gang of around 15 youths attacked fire-fighters in Limerick city. One fire-fighter was struck over the head with a pool cue. In April, a fire-fighter in Dundalk was hospitalised after his crew was attacked with missiles. Nationally, there are hundreds of incidences of assaults on gardaí every year. Nurses are regularly victims of unprovoked assaults, prison officers are routinely hospitalised and fire officers and paramedics are often more in danger from the thugs who attack them than from the incident or fire to which they are responding. A couple of years ago, my colleague in Fianna Fáil, Deputy Dara Calleary, proposed the Assaults on Emergency Workers Bill 2012, which is designed to crack down on assaulting or threatening an emergency worker in the line of duty. A central part of this Bill was a proposed minimum jail term of five years for anybody convicted of assaulting or threatening the life of a member of the front-line emergency services while they are on duty. We need to get real about this type of behaviour. Anyone who goes out of their way to assault, harm or threaten an on-duty emergency responder should know that the law will come down heavily on them. Throwing rocks at an ambulance and its crew as it brings a sick man to hospital, as happened last Hallowe'en night, is the behaviour of thugs. We now have a crazy situation in many accident and emergency departments whereby there are as many security guards as there are consultants or doctors on duty. This is farcical.This thuggish behaviour requires the Oireachtas to act. I strongly believe that assaults on our on-duty emergency services personnel should incur a much stiffer penalty than currently exists, to act as a deterrent.