Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

In the debate later on the motion of no confidence in the Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, we will discuss the litany of failures in the area of health. However, the one I cannot understand and which the Government does not appear to wish to resolve given the casual indifference it is displaying is the series of strikes taking place in the national ambulance service. There was one last Friday and there will be others on 28 February and 1 March. It would not cost a penny to resolve this, but the Government appears to be totally uninterested. It is about union recognition and the right of hundreds of ambulance drivers to be in the union of their choice, in this case the National Ambulance Service Representative Association, NASRA, branch of the Psychiatric Nurses Association, PNA. Can the Taoiseach explain why he would not wish to act to resolve this by simply accepting people's right to be in a union of their choice and to be recognised in that union in the context of something as critical as the delivery of an ambulance service?

In addition, will the Taoiseach comment on Mr. Owen Keegan's comments in The Sunday Business Postabout homeless accommodation acting as a magnet for the homeless? They were staggering comments. Does that reflect the Government's thinking? Whatever debate we may have on the success or otherwise of the Government's housing policy surely the Taoiseach would accept that the State is failing people who are homeless or who are waiting ten or 15 years on housing lists. The State should be somewhat apologetic and show a little humility in the face of that failure, rather than victim blaming and suggesting that emergency accommodation for the homeless is an attractive option for people in desperate housing need.

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