New Buncrana ambulance base and second Inishowen base confirmed

He said: “The people of Buncrana and Inishowen have long campaigned for a permanent ambulance base in Buncrana and a second base to serve the peninsula along with the Carndonagh base. So, this is good news for our people.

Unfortunately, there have been many instances of long waiting times for an ambulance for our people in Inishowen, in emergencies, over the years. This was always unacceptable and amounted to second class citizenship for our people.

The service in Buncrana will initially be a 12-hour service, seven days a week and based at the old health centre on the McCarter Road, Buncrana. The National Ambulance Service have advised me that they are finalising plans to carry out the necessary adaptation works at the old health centre and they will then increase this to a 24-hour service, seven days a week in the near future”.

The health centre was, up until recently, the base for Buncrana Health Centre, which relocated to the new Primary Care Centre two weeks ago.

The new multi-agency, multi-million-euro Primary Care Centre situated on Maginn Avenue, Buncrana, provides state-of-the art facilities to accommodate a wide range of primary care services within a single primary care facility.T he centre can house 126 staff, over three floors with 122 carparking spaces. There is also an underground car park and pedestrian access from Maginn Avenue and the Main Street.