Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

While I welcome the Minister of State's response, I firmly believe we will hit a crisis across all the emergency services.

While I welcome that people are living longer, and we are all glad about this, the cost of living is a significant factor. Everybody has mortgages and a lot more outgoings, which we see daily in our clinics. We are not able to recruit in certain areas. I go back to the retained firefighters, whom I have been meeting a lot recently. I spoke to a man with a part-time job who was offered a job with Carlow County Council as a retained firefighter. He could not take it because he was told at the job he was doing that if he took another job they could not have him. If people with a job that they cannot survive on look for another job, they may not be allowed to keep the first job. The challenge in the system is unacceptable.

I know our retained firefighters do not want to take industrial action. I can only pay tribute to them for the work they do. They come across accidents. Every day people's lives could be lost. They go through so much but they love the job. It is like politics. I firmly believe that to be a garda, a retained firefighter or an ambulance paramedic, people have to have a calling for it. They deal with people's lives daily. This can affect them.

We have to have proper pay and conditions. We have to give them the choice they deserve. Nobody wants to be here today saying this. Neither do they want to be in a position where they have to fight for the proper pay that they deserve. I have spoken to the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien. I have spoken to the Tánaiste and I am speaking to the Minister of State. We need to do something urgently in our emergency services or we could hit a crisis.

See this speech in context