asked the Minister for Defence why a request to provide the assistance of a helicopter to convey an emergency case from Inishboffin off the coast of Galway to the regional hospital, Galway, was refused by his Department; and if he will reassure the people of this island that there will be no recurrence of this unfortunate incident in future.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Helicopter for Galway Hospital Emergency Case.
22.
My Department did not refuse to make a helicopter available on the occasion in question. The facts are as follows:
(1) A request for the services of a helicopter to convey a sick child from Inishboffin to Galway Regional Hospital was made to my Department by the Secretary of the Galway County Council at 3.30 p.m. on 15th December, 1964.
(2) The request was based on a report from the District Medical Officer in Clifden that the child was seriously ill with an abdominal complaint (acute appendicitis suspected) and that the seas were too high to permit of the child's being taken off the island by boat.
(3) The Department was willing to make a helicopter available but it would have been impossible for the helicopter to reach the island and be back to Galway city before darkness set in. Helicopters are not capable of carrying out operations of the kind in question during darkness.
(4) Arrangements were made to send the helicopter on the mission at daybreak on the following day, 16th December, and the County Secretary was informed accordingly.
(5) The County Secretary stated that he would discuss the matter further with the District Medical Officer and report back to the Department. He did so and stated that the District Medical Officer was anxious to get the child to hospital that night, the 15th; that the possibility of using the Aran Lifeboat for the purpose had been examined and rejected for the same reason as the use of a helicopter was not practicable, viz. the time factor; and that a local boat would be used. Apparently the seas were not then running as high as they had been earlier.
I take it the Minister now agrees that there is a case to base the helicopter in the west, or that he should have a pad there for that purpose, seeing that 75 per cent of the cases are off the west coast. I think the Department should consider that.
The Minister had an answer but will these people be spared recurrences of this kind in future?
The Deputy is sidetracking the issue. He is a member of the local authority whose executive officer made the decision as to which sort of transport would be used. He is being given the reasons why only a local boat could be used and he will have to accept that as being the only possible decision in the circumstances.
How will the Minister explain to me that an official of a county council far remote from this island could make a decision while a child was ill on that island?
The decision was advised by the district medical officer.
The fact is that the local parish priest had to accompany this man on dangerous seas. It is a disgrace to the Department.
The lifeboat was not used and could not have been used. The only way of getting the child in was the way it was brought in and if the Deputy had been there and insisted on waiting for a helicopter the child would have been dead by the time it reached Galway.
The Minister talks about saving the west.
The Deputy should not play politics with a patient's life.
The Minister has played it with every man's life in the west. He has fallen down on the job.
Deputy Coogan never put his foot on Inishboffin.