The Tánaiste says an incident where a baby boy died after falling from a building and no ambulance was available is "disturbing".

The toddler fell from an upstairs window in Midleton in Cork on Monday night and when neighbours called the emergency services were told there was no ambulance available.

The little boy who would have celebrated his 2nd birthday tomorrow died in hospital on Wednesday.

The Tánaiste says whatever lessons need to be learned from the incident will be.

Michael Dickson is National Chairman of the National Ambulance Service Representative Association. He says the service and the government are playing 'Russian roulette' with peoples lives because of cost cutting.

"Why was the helicopter not dispatched to it? This was certainly a serious incident which turned out to be a tragic incident" he said.

"Only last weekend was a road traffic accident in Carlow as well, and...ambulances were dispatched from 4 counties - being Tipperary, Wexford, Kildare and Wicklow - because there was no ambulance available in Carlow either or Kilkenny, the next nearest available base".

"This is happening nationally, it's happening all the time" he added.

Former Cork GAA star Kevin Hennessy - who lives nearby - rushed to try to help the toddler, it was his daughter who called emergency services. 

Speaking to Cork's RedFM Kevin Hennessy says the boy's life may have been saved if an ambulance had been available.

HSE statement

The HSE has issued a statement confirming that an ambulance took 53 minutes to respond to the incident. However, the body is rejected claims that ambulance cover in East Cork has been reduced. The executive says;

"The Ambulance Control Centre in Cork was notified of an emergency call in Youghal at 02.20am. Ambulance Control processed the 999 emergency call and, as is the norm, requested the nearest available emergency ambulance to respond. At the time, there were 12 emergency ambulances on duty in Cork (Three in Cork city and nine across the county). There were also two 2 rapid response vehicles on duty. As the town of Youghal is based near the Cork / Waterford county border, a request about the availability of the Dungarvan emergency ambulance was also made to the South East Ambulance Control Centre (based in Wexford).

"It was established that the nearest available emergency ambulance (based in Cork city) was allocated to the call at 02.29am. This ambulance and crew arrived at the scene in Youghal at 03.13am. Total response time of 53 minutes.

"In relation to the ambulance service in East Cork, and in particular the references to a reduction in the ambulance service in the area, the HSE wishes to clarify that the Ambulance Service has not been reduced, in fact, it has been enhanced. The previous system saw a situation where four nights a week, paramedics were responding to calls after 8.00pm from their own homes as they were working an ‘on call’ system. In 2012, this system successfully changed to an ‘on duty’ system where paramedics are rostered on duty 24/7 and the ‘on call’ system has been eliminated. In addition, a very positive development has been the elimination of county boundaries i.e. the nearest Emergency Ambulance responds to an emergency call, regardless of its base / origin / county. This modernisation of ambulances services in East Cork has seen an overall enhancement of the service in the area."

Youghal assault victim

In a separate incident in Co. Cork on Monday an ambulance took almost an hour to respond to a call from Gardaí in Youghal. They'd sought help to treat an assault victim but despite calls to the ambulance service in Cork county and neighbouring Waterford and Wexford none was immediately available. The man later made a full recovery.

Security Correspondent with the Cork Evening Echo is Anne Murphy.