Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

Ambulance paramedics, advance paramedics and emergency medical technicians will strike on Friday and again on 28 February and 1 March. The striking workers are members of the National Ambulance Staff Representative Association, NASRA, a branch of the PNA. It is a strike for union recognition for workers to be allowed to be represented by the trade union of their choice. The Minister of State said the strike is regrettable. What is regrettable is that the Government refuses to even talk to this trade union. What is admirable is that these workers are taking a stand for their rights.

NASRA and the PNA are the union of choice for a very substantial bloc of ambulance workers. Some 1,800 people work in the national ambulance service. The Minister of State might tell us how many of these 1,800 are front-line staff with patient contact because approximately 600 of that number seem to want to be represented by NASRA. However, the Government and the HSE refuse to recognise this union. They continue to adopt a hard-line union-busting position. The Government and the HSE do not want to be put under pressure to deal with the underfunding of the ambulance service. The consequence is chronic overwork of ambulance staff. The national ambulance service is currently under-resourced to the point of approximately 600 staff and 300 ambulances at a minimum. Instead of confronting the issue, the Government prefers to overstretch ambulance staff, with pressure, threats and suspensions from national ambulance service management being used to whip the service into shape.

According to the 2016 national ambulance service staff survey carried out by Ipsos-MRBI on behalf of the service, 48% of staff members had experienced bullying or harassment in the organisation in the previous two years. Every worker in the service knows that a greatly disproportionate amount of that bullying and harassment came from management.

As an example of the methods used, two ambulance paramedics are currently out of work on suspension in Macroom, County Cork, because one of them cited a health and safety concern related to extra duties demanded at the end of a 12-hour shift. The formal disciplinary procedure only takes four to six weeks to process, but incredibly these workers have now been suspended for eight months. Is it an accident that both are members of NASRA and that one of them is the NASRA representative for the Cork and Kerry region? This management bullying culture in the ambulance service must end. The union chosen by hundreds of ambulance staff must be recognised and the service must get proper investment.

On 28 January members of SIPTU refused to pass pickets placed by their NASRA ambulance service colleagues. I have no doubt that they will do so again this Friday, again in defiance of appeals from their own union leadership. The stance of these rank-and-file SIPTU ambulance staff should set the template for the entire trade union movement in supporting this important fight for union recognition.

Some 71 years ago a leaflet was delivered to every home in the UK. It read:

Your new National Health Service begins on 5th July. What is it? How do you get it?

It will provide you with all medical, dental and nursing care. Everyone - rich or poor, man, woman or child - can use it or any part of it. There are no charges, except for a few special items. There are no insurance qualifications. But it is not a “charity”. You are all paying for it, mainly as tax payers, and it will relieve your money worries in time of illness.

That is the kind of health service this country needs - an Irish national health service. We need a national health service that is not for profit, free at the point of use, funded by a steeply progressive system of taxation, which fully included the super-wealthy and corporate interests, a health service that involves the total separation of church interests from State interests and one that provides a living wage and reasonable working conditions for its entire workforce.

A victory for the nurses and midwives is a victory for all who want a better health service. In reality the fight for workers' rights within the health service and the fight for an Irish national health service go hand in hand.

See this speech in context