Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Senator Gallagher. The Government is committed to ensuring Ireland continues to improve out-of-hospital cardiac arrest survival rates through supporting the strategy and all the work towards achieving a target of greater than 10% survival, as the Senator just said. To do this, there is a commitment to work with the National Ambulance Service in pursuing and endorsing opportunities to involve An Garda Síochána and the fire services. The strategy governance implementation group will continue its work to strengthen further the involvement of retained fire services in community first response to cardiac arrest.

Improving survival from an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest involves a number of initiatives. One of these is a specific aim to implement a National Ambulance Service national AED or defibrillator registry, which will be mapped on the National Ambulance Service dispatch system, and a supporting app for dispatching first responders. Work has already begun on developing this registry.

It is a good opportunity for all of us thank all of our emergency services who are part of the public service: An Garda Síochána, the fire services, the National Ambulance Service, mountain rescue, coastal rescue, and all of these people who do fantastic work. We should also thank our volunteer community first responders as well. It is an initiative that has grown up in recent years, and it is tremendous to see the commitment right across the country from ordinary people who have effectively trained themselves up, with assistance from the National Ambulance Service, etc., to be available within their community as first responders to keep people alive. Our thanks goes to them.