Manus Boyle (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I want to bring up an issue that is very dear to my heart, which is the National Ambulance Service. It is very important we get a review of the National Ambulance Service for rural communities. To provide a brief background to this, a while ago my mother became very ill. Thankfully, my sister managed to get out to the dispensary in Killybegs where the local doctor kept her and looked after her until the ambulance came. The ambulance was an hour and a half away. It came from Letterkenny. We have an ambulance base in Killybegs. Up until that event, I thought there were two ambulances based there all the time. When I got to Letterkenny and started to do a bit of digging around, I found out there was only one ambulance and one crew there. That had been changed a year or two ago. The ambulance is sitting at the side of the house, the base is there, and we have no crew. The Leader knows Donegal well. From Letterkenny to Malin Beg is maybe an hour and 45 minutes. It is a total disgrace we are not covered in these areas. The ambulance from Killybegs covers from Malin Beg, to Inver Bridge down as far as Fintown, down in Glenties.

At the end of the day do the people in the rural communities not need to be looked after too? They talk about the golden hour response time. We are well outside the golden hour. I am not asking for a fortune to sort this out. I just want the Minister to put a second crew in and reinstate our ambulance service in Killybegs to cover the rural parts of Donegal.