Mary Lou McDonald: Taoiseach Must End Ambulance Crisis Now

Our ambulance workers shouldn't have to strike to be heard by you Taoiseach. They shouldn't have to stand on a picket line to fight for fair pay, recognition and basic respect but that's what they were forced to do yesterday. They were left with no other option because you have failed to deliver improved pay for the incredible work, vital skills and life-saving expertise they bring to work every single day. Paramedics were asked to step up, to take on advanced training, to modernise the ambulance service and they did what was asked of them. But in typical Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael style, you washed your hands of your obligations and left them hanging. Not for a week, not for a month, but for six long years. And your response yesterday to the 24-hour stoppage means that we face escalating stoppages next week and the week after. Your failure to intervene has real consequences Taoiseach. You say to use the industrial relations mechanisms of the state but you know that there is a deadlock and without intervention this could take months to resolve. Yesterday there was a significant impact on ambulance service with even longer waiting times so you can't sit this one out Taoiseach. Your inaction risks walking the country into a summer of crisis with rolling strikes week after week. People don't want that. They're really worried. They want this resolved fast and paramedics don't want this. They want to be at work saving lives. This isn't any regular industrial dispute. This is our ambulance service. A service critical to people's well-being, to their safety and their health. I don't know what you see when you look at a paramedic Taoiseach but I know what I see. I see someone who shows up, who's there for you, who has your back in your most vulnerable moments and who gets the job done and yet they're denied fair pay. They're taken for granted. They're disrespected by your government and that's at the root of this crisis. You need to recognise that reality. You need to listen and you need to be active in fixing this. You need to be prepared and you need to stand up for your country in the face of crisis. This is how the reality should be. You need to be determined to make sure that you stand up for your country and the people you love. Taoiseach there is a crisis in our ambulance service. Your complete and utter inaction over six years has deepened that crisis so it is unacceptable for you now to look the other way. Standing on the sidelines simply won't cut it. Taoiseach you're supposed to be in charge so take charge. There is a week before the next strike. I urge you not to waste that time. Act, intervene, step in and help sort this out Taoiseach. First of all could I say at the outset that I want to have always acknowledged the critical role that those who work in the National Ambulance Service play in our health service and the Deputy put forward, I don't know what you see in a paramedic Taoiseach. I was critically involved at an earlier time as Minister for Health in the professionalisation of the first responder service. So I have the greatest and highest respect for the transformation that has occurred. It's been a good transformation. We have modernised the first responder approach in medicine and in health and that's critical in terms of the acute service but more importantly it's critical in terms of patient outcomes and the outcomes of very serious accidents or developments or cardiac arrest or whatever. The first responder is key and the fact that we have professionalised and modernised that is a good thing and we have always acknowledged and the state has always accepted that pay structures need to be modernised and previous engagement at the WRC. I said this to you yesterday and it's very dishonest of you to say that this has been ignored for six years. That is not the case. Negotiations took place. There was engagement at the WRC. It concluded with very significant outcomes and in particular the state offering to pay increases of between 3% to 14% linked to reform and this was on top of the 9.25% increase under the current public service agreement. Now while union leadership did recommend this proposal to their members it was rejected by staff following a ballot. Yeah but that's not ignoring something for six years. How can you with any credibility come into the house and say this was ignored for six years when clearly there was negotiations, there was an outcome. Negotiations were between the unions and the HSE. Okay the unions recommended it, the members voted against it. Now dialogue is the only route to resolving this and we don't, I'm of the view that it will get resolved but it has to be resolved through dialogue and the work stoppage or the 24-hour work stoppage concluded this morning. The HSE and the NAS did make every effort to minimise the impact on patients but we do know that there were significant delays in ambulance response times that did cause distress and upset to those who were depending on the ambulance service and we also acknowledge and I want to acknowledge the engagement of CYP2 and UNITE in contingency planning in advance to assist in reducing the risk to patients and it's recognised and welcome that on a number of occasions the National Ambulance Service staff returned to work to support the management of critical cases. I want to acknowledge that and their desire also to ensure patient safety and continuity of emergency care being the overriding priority. The HSE and the department remain ready and available to re-engage through the WRC, the Workplace Relations Commission or indeed the Labour Court processes and I would urge CYP2 and UNITE to return to those mechanisms in the interest of patient staff and the wider public. I would urge all involved to get back to the Workplace Relations Commission, use the WRC and the Labour Court to get this result. So I think your response reflects Taoiseach your lack of urgency on this question. I think you are quite happy to simply take a laissez-faire approach and hope that others will sort this out. You know that for the past six years throughout this process of modernisation ambulance workers have been left understaffed to the point that they have very very deep safety concerns. Those concerns are well grounded in our view. You have left them overworked, so many of them are burnt out. There is now an issue around recruitment and retention in that very service and you have left them underpaid. Yesterday those workers were on the picket line. If you maintain the position that you have articulated today, we face next week and the week after, and the week after that, an escalating crisis in the service. That's not good enough for the workers concerned and it's certainly not good enough for the public, for the citizens that rely on these workers for a life-saving service. So I urge you again to stop being a spectator, to intervene and assist in a resolution of this matter. First of all, again, you're mischaracterising my approach to this. This is a very serious issue. You know in your heart of hearts that this has to be resolved through the industrial relations machinery. You know that. Every single public service dispute that can occur, teachings will not be getting involved. Previous teaching, in my case, there's a proper way to do this and you cannot have a situation where we ignore completely the informed and sophisticated, experienced people we have in the Labour Court or in the Labour Relations Commission. That's how these disputes get resolved. You know that. We've also invested very significantly in the ambulance service. Overall funding is up about 41 percent. That's up 83 million between 2022 and 2025. In three years alone it went up 41 percent to 285. Staffing is up 588 staff and 126 million investment in the ambulance fleet and there's a further investment of 20 million planned for next year. Time is up. Thank you Taoiseach. Now Deputy Holly Kearns.