Galway City Council has unanimously passed a motion demanding that planning permissions for all future major housing developments include a condition to install a community defibrillator.
Councillor Níall McNelis (Lab ) proposed the motion mandating the local authority to write to the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, James Browne, and request that rules for new housing estates are changed so that developers must install cabinets for Automated External Defibrillators (AEDs ).
“We are also calling on the Minister to instigate a review in order to install AEDs in all existing residential developments across Ireland,” said McNelis. “Seventy per cent of cardiac arrests happen at home, and every minute that there is a delay in acting reduces the person's chance of survival by 10 per cent.
“Having the AED close at hand provides a vital link in the chain of survival and offers the person, adult, baby or child the best chance of surviving a cardiac arrest,” he added.
