Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour)
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300. To ask the Taoiseach and Minister for Defence his Department’s plans to allow the Air Corps to carry out priority one ambulance flights on behalf of the HSE; if arrangements will be made and adequate resources provided to allow this to come into effect from the start of 2023 when the current contract for the service expires; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [55303/21]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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The Air Corps provides a broad range of services in accordance with its primary security role.  It also undertakes a diverse range of non-security-related tasks on an ‘as available’ basis.  This includes providing an inter-hospital service on an ‘as available’ basis to the HSE, providing for the transfer of patients, including priority 1 patients, primarily to the UK using Air Corps Aircraft. 

The inter-hospital service is overseen by the National Aero-medical Coordination Centre of the HSE and the Air Corps is only one element of the overall service delivery provision; the Irish Coast Guard and the private sector being the other elements of service provision.  

At a Government meeting in July the Government agreed that the Department of Defence, working in conjunction with the Irish Coast Guard, will examine whether the fixed wing element of the proposed next generation Serach and Rescue (SAR) service can be delivered by the Air Corps in line with the requirements and parameters set out in the business case and provide the Department of Transport with a costed proposal. At this meeting it was also agreed that the Department of Health was to be involved in the discussions given the potential for the SAR fixed wing service to provide UK Emergency Transfer flights. This work is ongoing.

There has been effective and worthwhile engagement between the Departments, the Irish Coast Guard, the HSE and the Air Corps as a result of the relevant Government Decision in July. It is important that a full and realistic consideration is made of all of the viable options available to the State. I am is satisfied that this is the approach that has been taken to date.  

Up to 30 September 2021, the Air Corps has carried out 36 off-island Inter-Hospital Air Ambulance transfers at the request of the HSE, five of which were priority one transfers relating to children requiring urgent organ transplants.

I can assure the Deputy, that the Air Corps continue to provide support for emergency inter-hospital transfers on an “as available” basis, having regard to available capabilities and its primary security responsibilities.