Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

In that short time, I will quote a letter a paramedic wrote to me recently. It states:

We are paid as ambulance drivers whereas in fact we are trained and qualified as paramedics after completing a two or three-year course depending on the year you started. We are paid as emergency medical technicians where we should be getting paid as qualified paramedics.

That point needs to be addressed in terms of morale within the National Ambulance Service. The HSE tells us it has set up a workplace health and well-being group tasked with ensuring the deliver of high-quality staff support. I can tell the House now, based on a submission made to me by someone who works for the National Ambulance Service, that the group is not properly operational. What we have, chapter and verse, are examples of people who are working far in excess of the safe level and working extended house to cover backfill shifts when people are absent or there is not a service in place. There is a serious health and safety issue here and it must be addressed.

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