Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions
Dail Éireann — 2026-04-22
============================================================

Micheál Martin (FF), Cork South-Central

Regarding the spring-October statement, the general Government balance is in surplus but all of that money is being used. There is an Exchequer deficit of €1.1 billion. The rest goes into the funds, which we have provided for. Nobody is commenting on that. That €10 million is not hanging around somewhere to be used. The bulk of it has been allocated to the funds and it is being invested in the economy, housing, infrastructure, wind energy and so on.
If we look at the ambulance service over a ten, 15 or 20-year period, a revolution in emergency care has happened, for example, the Pre-Hospital Emergency Care Council and emergency medical technicians. The professionalisation of the entire area has been quite remarkable and has led to very significant outcomes in terms of responses to patients and first responders. It has been dramatic compared to what we had historically but I accept the Deputy's point that there are legitimate issues that need to be examined by the HSE and the National Ambulance and I will ask the Minister to do that.

---

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/2026-04-22/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:51+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-04-22