Tom Dennigan of Continental Tyres with Fergus Lennon of Blood Bikes Leinster and one of the Blood Bikes support vehicles as they take a break from work at Naas General Hospital in Co. Kildare. (Picture: Finbarr O'Rourke)

Continental Tyres Ireland has renewed its partnership as support vehicle tyre partner for Blood Bikes Leinster, the east coast chapter of the nationwide Association of Blood Bikes. 

Blood Bikes is a registered not-for-profit Irish charity, established by local volunteers, who look after the timely delivery of blood, breast milk and other time-sensitive material to hospitals and medical centres across the country.

Depending totally on public donations and corporate sponsorship, the service is run free of charge for the medical bodies, thanks to the legion of volunteer riders who give their time freely for this life-saving service.

The Blood Bikes teams carry out this valuable service to hospitals ensuring that ambulances or Garda vehicles are not taken out of service and are kept where they are needed the most.

Since the arrival of Covid-19 in Ireland last year, the Blood Bikes Leinster team has been heavily involved in transporting virus testing materials from test locations to laboratories across Leinster.

Since January, with the arrival of Covid-19 vaccines in the country, the organisation has taken a leading role in the transport of Covid-19 serial testing to medical facilities, residential homes and mental health centres across the country.

As support vehicle tyre partner to the service, Continental is supplying its award-winning tyres for use on the Blood Bikes support vehicles, including a 4×4 model, that enables the service to continue operating during even the most arduous of weather conditions.

Fergus Lennon, Regional Coordinator of Blood Bikes Leinster, said: “We are very appreciative of the partnership with the Continental Tyres Ireland team. Like all organisations across the country, the pandemic has hit us hard – our normal fundraising activity has been seriously restricted so we are relying more and more on corporate partners like Continental Tyres to keep our service going. And with our involvement in the roll out of the Covid-19 serial testing, that service is now more important than ever.”

Tom Dennigan of Continental Tyres Ireland said: “The roll out of widespread serial testing is very important and we are only too happy to provide our support to Fergus and his team of volunteers as they clock up the miles, delivering an invaluable service in support of the fight against the virus.”