Farmers throw air ambulance cash lifeline
The cash-strapped air ambulance is set to be thrown a massive cash lifeline by farmers.
Members of organizations like Kerry Co-Op and the Irish Farmers Association are to be asked to donate €20 each to the Irish Community Rapid Response-run service.
There are around 13,000 members in the co-op alone and each one is due to get a text message asking if they will donate the money.
If they all agree and donate the money, this could raise enough funds to send the air ambulance on around 74 life-saving missions.
Kerry County Council councillor Johnny Healy-Rae has been approached by a group of farmers concerned about the future of the service.
Last week, the charity raised €61,848 of a €400,000 target it set for a two-week GoFundMe campaign.
When it launched it, the charity said it would ground its service if it couldn’t reach the target.
That didn’t happen and instead, it cut service from seven to five days to ensure it could carry on for another six weeks, during which time it said it would try and come up with more money.
However, it has - yet again - warned if it doesn’t raise enough funds, the service again faces being grounded.
“A group of farmers are lobbying the major rural farmer's organisations to raise funds for the air ambulance,” Mr Healy-Rae, who sits on Kenmare Municipal District, said.
This is a critical service for Kerry and Cork, given our geography and a large amount of areas that are remote, and away from the main urban areas.
“There is a sense of urgency now given that we know, from what the government has said, there is no money coming from the State to help the service.” He said the situation has not been helped by the fact that the Dáil is not sitting and there is a General Election underway.
“It is hard for the charity to get much traction at the moment because of everything that is going on,” he added. “Also, there is still a number of people who don’t realize the service even exists.”
Although the National Ambulance Service (NAS) provides medical staff and coordinates the taskings, the charity needs €2 million-a-year to fund the helicopters, pilots, fuel and its airbase.
The charity has said it has already raised over €700,000 through “donations, benefactors and public fundraising campaigns”.
It also says it had gone on 277 missions between July 31, 2019 and January 18, 2020.
A substantial Kerry Co-op donation will go a long way to helping prolong the service.
The charity has said the “cost-saving measure is a temporary fix” to ensure the survival of the service until February 28.
