Ambulance service and fuel allowance
Deputy Browne raises ambulance dispatch failures and argues the service needs more staff, while Deputy Murphy challenges a delayed fuel allowance means-test change and asks for the record to be corrected. The Taoiseach defends the ambulance training model and says he will engage with the service; the fuel allowance reply is cut off.
We are out of time but we are going to hear Deputies Martin Browne and Paul Murphy in 30 seconds.
Comment on this
I am glad that the Minister of health, Deputy Donnelly, will not oppose the Sinn Féin motion. The Taoiseach recently told me that the current ambulance system is the optimal one. Why am I, then, being repeatedly told that the system is broken? The automated computer system wrongly prioritises need. Take the case of a two-year-old child with a respiratory illness whose call was overridden for a person with a chest infection because the system logged it as such. The Minister, Deputy Donnelly, talks about 200 people doing the degree. This is not enough as only 80 people will come out at the end of this year with that degree-----
Comment on this
-----after a three-year course. As I said to the Taoiseach last week somebody is going to die and this review is going to be way overdue.
Comment on this
On 19 October I asked the Taoiseach why the increase in the means test for fuel allowance was being delayed until next January.
The Taoiseach told me that the Government decision was to implement the decisions with immediate effect on budget night. I then got a letter from the Minister, dated 15 November, telling me that, in fact, the decision is that the means test will not be increased until next January. Will the Taoiseach either correct the record of the Dáil or, preferably, correct the wrong decision to delay the increase in the means test? People who need the fuel allowance now will have to wait until January.
Comment on this
In response to Deputy Browne, first of all the degree programme is vital. It has been the most transformative thing we did in terms of professionalising the EMT profession, and I was involved in it. The professionalisation of the sector is the most effective thing we have done in terms of pre-emergency care. As I said, I have heard what people have said in terms of individual examples which are constantly quoted. I cannot delve into every individual case which may potentially point up a systemic issue that the ambulance service needs to consider. We will engage with the ambulance service.
On Deputy Murphy's point, it was my understanding that measures had been taken and the vast majority of social protection measures were introduced on budget night. I will pursue the latter point he raised.