Conor Gallagher reports today in The Irish Times on yesterday's Representative Association of Commissioned Officers, RACO, conference on the future of air ambulance services. The air ambulance service, currently based in Athlone, provides immediate access for people who become suddenly or acutely ill to a central hospital and life-saving treatment. It was introduced to supplement the traditional road-based ambulance service and allows people who live in remote areas, who have been involved in a road traffic accidents in urban areas or who suffer from heart, brain or other acute illnesses rapid access to a major hospital.

In 2018, the service dealt with 159 road traffic accidents and 146 medical emergencies. That gives a sense of the difference made by the service to lives, families and communities across the country on a daily basis. Every Deputy in the House knows that the ambulance service is under inordinate pressure and ambulance response times are far longer than they should be. The latest figures provided in response to parliamentary questions for the north west, west, midlands, south east and south west show that, on average, only half of the calls reached a patient in less than the recommended time of 19 minutes and many calls are in excess of the hour necessary. The air ambulance service is important and has worked and provided certainty for medical professionals, families and those involved in acute situations.

At the RACO conference yesterday, it was revealed that the Defence Forces are no longer in a position to staff the service comprehensively as it currently exists. Lieutenant colonels and senior management are being forced to fly the service because those who have traditionally flown have left the Defence Forces. It is another sign of the flight from our Defence Forces, a flight which has occurred despite an underspend on salaries within the Defence Forces. Deputies Chambers and O'Loughlin and many others have consistently brought this to the attention of the Government, but it has ignored the issue. As a consequence of that, the air ambulance service is now under threat. People in communities around the country have read the report and are worried.

Can the Minister, Deputy Richard Bruton, accept that there are problems in the air ambulance service and give a guarantee on behalf of the Government that it will continue to provide the current level of service and response times? When will the Government finally cop on and wake up to what it is doing to our Defence Forces? It is standing by while people are leaving the Defence Forces in droves and services such as this are being affected. Can the Minister confirm he has read the report and that there will be a Government response?

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue because we all depend on the ambulance service. Many of us have cause to be very appreciative of the commitment and service those working in it provide.

I can give the Deputy an absolute assurance that we are committed to the air ambulance service. Not only that, new ambulance bases were recently opened in Mulranny and Tuam. We are also committed to improving and expanding the number of paramedic training places and numbers to support the growing demand on the ambulance service.

I am aware of the report to which the Deputy referred. There is no doubt that there has been a difficulty in retaining staff in the Air Corps. As the Deputy knows, the recent pay commission established by the Government recommended a pilot retention scheme which, I understand, has been accepted by RACO. We now have the basis for moving forward to tackle the issue of retention in the Air Corps.

I am conscious that this is an area where the private sector has boomed in recent years. There is significant international pressure in respect of the demand for pilots, which has undoubtedly been a challenge. The introduction of this scheme will be a very useful tool in the hands of the Defence Forces to ensure we can maintain the staffing levels required to meet all needs.

I am pleased to be in a position to confirm the commitment of the Government to the air services and to work with the Defence Forces to meet the challenges they face. I am also conscious that we have to meet the demands of different segments of the public service in an integrated context. It is important that the Minister has used the pay commission to identify areas such as this where there are acute pressures and we can move to resolve issues such as the manning of ambulance services by having a dedicated policy instrument on the pay front to respond to those particular pressures, while maintaining the integrity of overall pay policy.

I refer to the integrity of the overall pay policy. The figures given to Deputy Chambers show a €24 million underspend in salaries in the Defence Forces to date in 2019. The Government is allowing people to leave the forces and is sending back money while the air ambulance service, which dealt with 159 car crashes and 146 medical emergencies in 2018, is in difficulty. To use the words of Mr. Conor King, the director of RACO, the service is on the brink of collapse. The Minister has given an assurance that the service will be fine, yet neither he nor the Minister of State, Deputy Paul Kehoe, have followed that through by engaging in recruitment and addressing the gaps in the personnel who provide this service.

The service provided 848 hours of flying in 2016, but that fell to 581 in 2018. Will the Government allow it to fall further in 2019? Will we end up in a situation where the service will not be available to somebody who needs it urgently? When that happens, there will be an emergency response and the usual statements of regret and intent. Now is the time to act. The Department of Defence sent back €24 million this year but it is standing idly by while the Defence Forces are being hollowed out. Communities across Ireland are paying the price. The Government is putting its head in the sand again. I cannot believe the commitments provided by the Government on this matter because it has not responded to these issues to date.

The Deputy must bear in mind that pilot retention was specifically highlighted by the pay commission as an area that needed to be addressed and that has been done. A pilot retention scheme was recently accepted by the RACO. We are in a position to improve the ability of the Defence Forces to retain staff, particularly in the crucial area to which the Deputy refers. Improvements are also being made in other areas under the recommendations of the pay commission for the Army.

What about the pensions of members of the Defence Forces?

Those improvements include service, patrol duty and security duty allowances, as the Deputy will be aware. We must respond to pressures in this way. We have developed a pay policy that allows that flexibility of response where there is clear evidence of need. The pay commission has done important work and we are acting on it.

Soldiers are not able to pay their rent.