I wish to raise serious concerns we have about the ambulance service in west Cork. West Cork has four ambulances: one based in Clonakilty; one based in Castletownbere, one based in Bantry General Hospital; and one based in Skibbereen. I am reliably informed that, on most days and from early morning to late at night, the Clonakilty ambulance is in Cork city and county, not in west Cork, where it is supposed to be. The Castletownbere ambulance is in Kerry, tied up all day and night, leaving just two ambulances to cover the whole of west Cork. Cork, being 132 km long, is the longest county in the country.

When the Skibbereen and Bantry ambulances get a call from anywhere in west Cork, they are instructed, no matter how big or small the medical issue is, to take the patient to Cork University Hospital, in many cases bypassing Bantry General Hospital, which could easily sort the problems. This is an issue for another day. When the two ambulances arrive at Cork University Hospital, their patients most likely cannot be taken into the hospital due to overcrowding, meaning the ambulances are tied up outside the door for hours, thus leaving the whole of west Cork without any ambulance cover.

To compound the problem further, some of the west Cork ambulances are sent to Waterford, Tipperary or Listowel, leaving west Cork with no ambulance service cover on many nights.

How many people have to die before the Government sits up and takes notice that this system is not working? The HSE and the ambulance service cannot hide behind the dark of night and hope no-one will know they have no cover in west Cork for the people from the Beara Peninsula, Bantry, the Mizen, Sheep's Head, Skibbereen and Dunmanway, as well as Clonakilty, Bandon and Kinsale. It is a massive geographical spread with no cover and this is on the Taoiseach's watch. The facts speak for themselves: people lying on the roadside for hours after a car crash; elderly people lying for almost a day after a fall, one of whom was left for 16 or 17 hours and a case that turned out to be a serious broken bone; or in some recent cases parents driving a seriously ill family member to the hospital as no ambulance could be found. I have spoken of this to the former Taoiseach but not a thing has changed. Now I ask the Taoiseach to make changes to save the lives of the people of west Cork who require a simple ambulance service that cannot be found.

I ask the Taoiseach to look at the imminent collapse of the ambulance services in west Cork. The ambulance service is losing the best staff anyone could ask for due to stress issues around delivering hours and hours hundreds of kilometres away from their base. West Cork cannot be allowed to remain wide open for so many nights without cover, with this Government standing idly by and covered by the dark of night. It cannot continue. What does the Taoiseach plan to overhaul this mess, which is having serious consequences for the people from Innishannon to the Mizen Peninsula?

I am afraid that I do not have specific information to hand with regard to the ambulance service in Cork south west, or indeed any particular part of the country. The Minister for Health is beside me here in the Chamber and he will be happy to engage directly with the Deputy on this and to provide more information and answer the Deputy's questions as best we can.

On the wider issue, we are implementing a programme of constant improvement of our national ambulance service at the moment. We acknowledge that response times are not as good as they should be and ought to be. We are increasing the number of ambulances and increasing the number of staff who work in the national ambulance service and also improving and upgrading ambulance bases. Increasingly, it is a service that is provided by paramedics and advanced paramedics. These are people who can treat patients on the scene and are able to decide which is the most appropriate hospital to take the patient to. This is a really important improvement and a very important change from our ambulance service of the past. We also have an air ambulance service. The Deputy will be aware that ten years ago there was no helicopter ambulance service in Ireland. We now have two helicopters operating. This is a big improvement especially when it comes to major trauma. It is a significant improvement. This is all happening at a time when our population is rising and is ageing and the demands for healthcare are increasing. As a result of that, we are developing a new national ambulance strategy and the funding is there to back it up so we can improve our ambulance service, get people treated on the scene by paramedics and make sure they are taken to the right hospital where the most appropriate level of care can be provided.

I respect that the Taoiseach may not have to hand all of the information relating to the west Cork ambulance service. I appreciate the Taoiseach's offer that the Minister will engage on this matter.

Staffing is an issue. The staff the ambulance service has at the moment are exhausted. Some are walking away. I have spoken to them personally. There were great ambulance staff who just could not cope anymore and just walked away from the whole crisis they see there. There are solutions out there if worked on. I will put some of these solutions to the Taoiseach. In 2013 the west Cork people and ambulance staff were sold a fib that there would be a 24-7 rapid response vehicle in west Cork at all times. It would be a truly great service, if delivered. Fast forward ten years and what the people of west Cork have is a daytime rapid response vehicle, which I was told was out for 94 days last year. This broken promise of a 24-hour service has cost numerous lives in west Cork. If we are to put our ambulance service right we need an intermediate care vehicle to transport people from hospital to nursing homes or to community hospitals and back. This needs to be put in place immediately. These solutions will not resolve this huge ambulance crisis in west Cork but if worked on it will make a very positive difference. I urge the Taoiseach to work with all involved to introduce these solutions. If not, the consequences will be fatal for the people of west Cork who require an ambulance service.

I acknowledge that a lot, if not all, of our healthcare staff are exhausted at the moment and many feel burnt out. Ambulance staff are among those. It has been a relentless three years for people who work in our health service. Many of us went from lock down to unlock, and perhaps got to spend time at home or work from home, whereas our health services have been really stretched. It has been an extraordinary three years with a pandemic. Now that the pandemic has entered a different phase, all of the unmet healthcare needs that we could not deal with during the pandemic have boomeranged and there is a huge snapback in demand for healthcare. This has made it extremely difficult for healthcare staff. That is not unique to Ireland. As the Deputy will be aware, it is also the case in the North, in Britain and all around the world.

On the rapid response vehicle, as I have said, I do not have a reply on that today for the Deputy. The Minister will come back to the Deputy on that and we will see what we can do.

That concludes Leaders' Questions.

When there is no ambulance in Clonakilty where do they come then only take the ambulance from Kenmare? Kenmare and all that area is then without an ambulance.