In this wonderful world of non-discrimination, when such things as age cannot be taken into account with anything, why get worked up about this?

Guidelines from an ambulance advisory group stipulate vehicles should be replaced when they are more than five-years-old.

However, the figures show that 12 ambulances have been on Northern Ireland’s roads for nine years.
…
Mr Wells said this was not acceptable.

“This information raises serious questions about the capacity of our ambulance fleet to respond to emergencies such as road accidents or house fires in a satisfactory and speedy manner,” the DUP representative said.

No, this information raises no such questions. Because a vehicle, properly maintained, will just keep on keeping on.

Another minor point is something I noticed when I worked next door to the NIAS HQ. This was just as the roll-out of the big, shiny yellow ambulances was happening. So they were brand new. You know what? In a year there, I didn’t see a single ‘old’ white ambulance arrive on the back of a breakdown van, whereas you’d see a yellow one arrive every other day. So why complain that the white ones aren’t being replaced with yellow ones, when one plainly works better than the other?

Or is this just an excuse for a local politician to get their face in the news, with such classic lines as “This is unacceptable”? Because I wouldn’t rule that out…