Departmental Strategies
Dail Éireann — 2026-03-03
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Richard Boyd Barrett (PBP), Dún Laoghaire

Outside the Dáil today, there was a protest by a large number of mostly young people who are newly qualified paramedics. The Taoiseach may have seen that they gathered a petition over the weekend. About 10,000 people have signed it. For the last three years, they have been doing a degree to become paramedics and they have also been working part time for the HSE. When they were brought in through a recruitment campaign in late 2022, into this degree course and into the part-time work, they were given the clear understanding that they would be given permanent contracts. This was reiterated as recently as December of last year. All of a sudden, they have had the rug pulled out from under them and they have been told they have to reapply in a competition for their own jobs. They are absolutely gutted. They are being told, having believed they would be working relatively close to where their children go to school and so on, that they could be sent to another side of the country and not even got a job with the HSE. This is a shameful way to treat these young people. Can the Taoiseach intervene on their behalf?

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-03-03/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:02+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-03-03