Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein)
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145. To ask the Minister for Defence if ambulances belonging to the Defence Forces are continuing to be used to supplement Health Service Executive civilian ambulance services; and if so, the number of times they have been used in this regard since January 2014. [28005/15]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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The Defence Forces maintains a small ambulance fleet to transfer Military personnel to and between hospitals, and to attend training exercises. Such exercises would include artillery shoots, weapons shoots, live battle practices and other operational exercises. There is currently no arrangement in place with the Health Service Executive for the Defence Forces to supplement the Health Service Executive ambulance service. However, whilst the primary role of the Defence Forces ambulance fleet is to meet their own needs, these ambulance resources can be mobilised, on a case by case basis, to assist in response to Aid to the Civil Authority requests. I can confirm that since January 2014 no such requests were received from the Health Service Executive.