Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions Dail Éireann — 2026-01-20 ============================================================ Micheál Martin (FF), Cork South-Central Déanaim comhbhrón le clann Stephen Lavelle as ucht an méid a tharla. Is olc an scéal é gan dabht. Mar a dúirt an Teachta, ní féidir le héinne nó aon fhocail sásamh nó aon rud a chur in iúl don chlann. Is drochscéal ar fad é mar atá á léiriú ag an Teachta inniu. No words can console the family of Stephen Lavelle in terms of what happened and the loss of life in the circumstances the Deputy described. I am not aware of the case specifically, but I take on board what she said about the delay in getting Stephen to the hospital. I do not have the full details of the case or the background to it. It is a devastating loss to the family. It is important to say, although this is of no consolation to the family, there has been very significant investment in the ambulance service over many years. There has been significant investment in the first responder approach and the whole professionalisation of the paramedical area, the principle being that the more first responders we can get to the scene of an accident or to somebody becoming very acutely ill is the most effective way of preventing loss of life and dealing with patients in very difficult and life-threatening situations. That has happened over a period. The National Ambulance Service, NAS, devised a national framework for ambulance coverage. There has been criticism of that framework in terms of how it operates. NAS defends the framework, which replaced a locally in situ -based ambulance service, as one that is nationally governed and nationally organised into the future. That drew on a lot of expertise at the time. Additional posts have been allocated to the service. This year alone, we are looking at another €8 million for 180 additional posts and the development of NAS specialist services. About 81 of those have been recruited to date, with the remainder at various stages of recruitment. At the moment, investment by Government had seen the total NAS staff rise to 2,430 as of August 2025. That is a rise of 25%, or 502 staff, since 2020, with 85% of the National Ambulance Service staff working in direct patient-facing roles. It deals with about 430,000 urgent and emergency calls - that was as far back as 2024 - which is up 32,000 calls on the previous year. The demand is increasing and continues to rise. The focus is on improving and increasing the performance of NAS, particularly in terms of life-threatening cardiac or respiratory arrest. It is improving but we will not be happy unless it is 100%. That is where we want this to be. Again, anything I have said is of no consolation to the family concerned. I will refer the case to NAS and to the HSE for further examination of what happened here and what the correct response and specific conditions should or could have been. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-01-20/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:31+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-01-20