An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business
Seanad Éireann — 2026-05-12
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Pauline Tully (SF), Cultural and Educational Panel

This morning, I met staff of the National Ambulance Service who are on strike on the picket line in Cavan. The first thing they said to me was that they do not want to be there, they want to be out doing their jobs and it should never have got to this stage. They are looking for the recognition of the upskilling they have undertaken in the past 15 years. One woman who was there told me she has been working for the NAS for 30 years and when she began working there, her job was to transport a patient safely from one location to a hospital setting. She said basically what she had to do was drive faster if the person was more seriously injured or more sick than someone else. She needed to get them there. Now, the NAS provides medical intervention en route to the hospital and has saved the lives umpteen times of people who have had heart attacks or are on the verge of strokes. They are able to make interventions that save those people's lives until they get them to the hospital they are going to, so they deserve proper pay and conditions.
The Minister for Health needs to get back to the negotiating table to talk to the unions representing these workers. A number of colleagues brought this up this morning. They belong to Government parties. Some of them are in the same party as the Minister. They should talk to her and tell her to get back to the table. This is much too serious to be left on the picket line.
Concerns were expressed by a number of those striking about the director of the NAS, Robert Morton. There seems to be a pattern. He managed an ambulance service in Australia that was involved in a dispute as well and another in Britain after that. He has a history of industrial disputes about conditions. The staff feel that the management system in the HSE has failed to address the chronic understaffing, pay and morale issues. Management now even wants to cut the pay staff get for overtime. Many of them do a 12-hour shift that seldom finishes after 12 hours. They often end up doing two, three and sometimes four or five hours more. We need a lot of investment in the ambulance service but we first need to solve the dispute that has brought these people to the picket line where they do not want to be. They want to get on with their work.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-05-12/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:55+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-05-12