Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independents 4 Change) | Oireachtas source

This motion could be addressed to many if not all areas of the health service: insufficient capacity; lack of funding; staff shortages; enormous pressures and mental strain on staff; and a constant ongoing crisis affecting both those who need the service and those who work in it. Despite increased funding and a commitment to employ more staff, there is difficulty in recruiting new staff and holding on to trained staff. One of the answers to that relates to poor conditions of employment, including low pay, poor management and low morale among staff.

The figures relating to the National Ambulance Service in the 2018 national staff survey by the HSE are quite shocking. Only 5% of staff felt that senior management acted on staff concerns; only 5% felt that communication was effective; only 6% had confidence in decisions made by senior management; and shockingly seven out of ten had experienced bullying and harassment.

These figures indicate a completely dysfunctional workplace environment - at best, a management that does not listen or engage with staff and at worst, a culture of bullying and harassment. That is within a publicly funded State service employer.

The HSE could make a start in changing this by recognising the right of ambulance workers to be fully represented by a union of their choice, in this case NASRA. I fully support the amendment to the motion in this regard. There are 500 workers represented by NASRA and they feel totally sidelined in giving their experience within the service. I wish the Minister, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, was here, as he sent a tweet on 16 July 2019 stating:

So @PNA_IRL feel they’ve been left with no option but to order the strike back on this Friday. How do we solve this? We need meaningful engagement from both sides, we need to use the industrial relations apparatus of the State and above all we must show RESPECT to workers.

That was the Minister, then part of the Opposition, calling for support and respect for the workers. I wonder if he has started the process of using the industrial relations apparatus of the State to try to resolve this matter. I would have asked him if he had been here tonight.

Alongside poor management is the ongoing problem of a lack of adequate funding and capacity in the service. Workers in the service have been raising these matters for years. In 2014, following an "RTÉ Investigates" programme and a Private Members' motion by Fianna Fáil on the matter, the disparity in the sources of funding in comparison with the North of Ireland and Scotland was highlighted by representatives of the PNA and NASRA at an Oireachtas committee meeting. Northern Ireland, with a population of 1.7 million people, had 1,200 staff and an annual budget of €78 million. With a population of 5.3 million, Scotland had 5,400 staff and a budget of €258 million. Here, with the population then at 4.6 million, we had staff of 1,600 and a budget of €137 million. We had approximately a third of the resources of Northern Ireland and Scotland.

I fully support the motion and commend Sinn Féin on bringing it forward. I thank the Minister of State for indicating the Government will not oppose it but I want its provisions implemented. The annual spend of private ambulance services has risen from €2.1 million in 2011 to €10.1 million in 2019. What are we doing and why are we paying private ambulances when we could expand our services? This should be dealt with in Sláintecare.

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