Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 1:

To insert the following after “but cannot return to frontline emergency roles for health reasons”:

“and

— direct the Health Service Executive to recognise the National Ambulance Service Representative Association, who are members of the Psychiatric Nurses Association, as

a trade union with full collective bargaining rights for its members employed in the NAS.”

I thank the Sinn Féin Party and congratulate it on a very good motion. It is good to hear that the Government will not be objecting to or opposing it like it normally does, just for sake of it, and I hope the motion will make a difference.

There is one further matter I wish to mention. The Minister was not in the Chamber this morning when I mentioned it. On top of all of the details about the crisis in our service and how that could be improved by having a more efficient flow-through to beds and ambulance services, etc., there is the question of home care packages.

Many beds could be freed up from our hospital services and ambulances would not be waiting outside if those beds could be freed up if there was not the total chaos in the provision of home care packages. I understand, from talking to local health teams in Ballyfermot and beyond, that many workers are leaving the companies that provide these packages because their pay and conditions are so poor. They are not paid for travel time or expenses for using their own cars or if they have to take taxis and buses. They are constantly under pressure by the companies that employ them. A lot of these inefficiencies etc. can come down to workers' rights and how they are treated, in particular if we cannot recruit and retain staff. This situation could be addressed by dealing with this group of workers in the home care industry in a proper and decent way.

That brings me directly to what I want to say about our amendment. We want to add to the motion "to direct the ... [HSE] to recognise the National Ambulance Service Representative Association... [known as NASRA, affiliated to] the Psychiatric Nurses Association, as a trade union with full collective bargaining rights for its members employed in the ... [National Ambulance Service]". The Minister may recall when he was in opposition that on at least seven days this group of more than 500 workers in NASRA systematically organised. They were often outside the gates of the Dáil, sometimes hundreds of them at a time. They banged on our doors to ask this Minister and previous Ministers to tell the HSE to recognise this group of workers with almost half of the National Ambulance Service in its membership. The previous Ministers refused to do so and I am now appealing to the Minister not to do likewise.

My brother is gone now, but he was an ambulance driver. For many years workers in the ambulance service were extremely frustrated at the low levels of representation and services they got from their unions. They have a right to move on and establish themselves in other unions. A union they are connected with, namely, the Psychiatric Nurses Association, PNA, has 50 years of experience in organising within the health service. That is important.

When it comes to trying to advance legislation on how to bring on community paramedicine and chronic disease management to provide alternatives, we will have to talk to workers. We cannot leave them out of the loop. I understand there are trials in place, but there is a cohort of workers nobody is talking to . That is why this matters in a very concrete way. It matters in terms of fulfilling the objective of having a workforce that buys into, agrees with and is enthusiastic about major changes to be made in their lives. That is why the amendment to the Sinn Féin motion is so important.

I mentioned that my brother worked in the service. One of the first things he had to do when called out when he was very junior, and at a time when the training was not nearly as good as it is now, was to attend a car crash where a man had been decapitated. He suffered very badly psychologically for a very long time with the memory of that. He got no counselling, support or backup. I do not think he even got sick leave at the time. The section of the motion that refers to expanding mental health supports for the workforce, including access to counselling and psychiatric services where they are appropriate, is absolutely essential. After all, these workers are dealing every day with complex cases and life and death. Without them, we would all suffer greatly. Due to the fact they are suffering, the service is suffering.

There is a domino effect from the time an ambulance tries to get to someone, to the time it gets to the hospital, meets the trolley crisis and bed blocking happens, a term which I hate but which explains the situation best, and then to not having home care services. There are a whole load of complex problems. The Government must talk to workers and this is a crucial cohort of workers that has to be recognised.

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