FINGAL residents 'will die' if a dispute over an ambulance serving the county is not resolved. The Health Service Executive has refused to pay Dublin City Council for the emergency vehicle, which is based at Swords Fire Station, and the service may yet be axed, leaving tens of thousands of people at risk.

'The HSE refuses to pay for the ambulance for Swords, even though it's one of the biggest ambulances in the city and it does long runs out to the country,' advanced paramedic, Gary Hayden said.

'There's talk of cutting the ambulance in Swords. People die because of these decisions. The ambulance will be coming from Kilbarrack or Finglas to take people from Swords.

'Considering in a cardiac arrest you've got about six or seven minutes, people will die. That's direct cutbacks to the public and that's what we're protesting about here as well.' Just 12 emergency ambulances serve the entire Dublin area, along with a number of HSE vehicles and the Swords service was the only addition to the fleet in the last 20 years.

' This ambulance wasn't there two years ago,' Mr Hayden added. 'Swords covers the entire north Dublin area.

'What will end up happening, if this ambulance goes, the ambulance will come out from Tara Street and for people who are genuinely injured, they're gone. There's nothing we can do for them.

'They will send a fire truck, because we're all trained paramedics. But the fire truck can only do so much. It can't transport a patient. These are the cuts they're making.' Ambulances are also being regularly delayed at hospitals, due to a chronic lack of trolleys and beds in emergency rooms.

' They get stuck up in Beaumont Hospital for six or seven hours because there are no trolleys,' Mr Hayden noted. 'You end up having a patient who is on our stretcher, but can't get off it because they are too sick to sit in a chair.

' We can't go anywhere without our stretcher. You end up having ambulances left there and ambulances coming out from Donnybrook to cover Swords.' In May, a HSE spokesperson said an arrangement with Dublin City Council for the provision of ambulances and had altered the associated costs of the service.

- Robin KIELY