Brian Hayes (Fine Gael)

Yesterday the Ambulance Association of Ireland stated, "We have staff working round the clock trying to keep emergency ambulances on the road. We have members doing back-to-back shifts, which is totally illegal, and we are genuinely worried that patients are being put at risk". Front line medical staff such as ambulance crews and others have sought 400 additional paramedic and support staff in this area because the service is, in their words, at "breaking point". It will come as little comfort to them to read in today's newspapers that staff in the upper echelons of the HSE are coining it through the salaries and positions they have negotiated for themselves. The notion that individuals can earn €250,000 per annum and €1,500 per day in overtime is a complete joke to front line staff who are trying to operate a service to help people up and down this country. The Government and the HSE need to be held to account for this and I ask for time to be provided for the Minister for Health and Children to come to the House and explain why a golden circle has negotiated these contracts while other health care workers must put up with Dickensian conditions within the service. That is worthy of debate and I ask the Leader to respond to it.

Yesterday I heard Senator Norris raise the issue of the Abbey Theatre. I join him in calling for a short debate between now and Easter on this subject. It is lunacy that we are talking about hiving off the Abbey Theatre to a part of Dublin which has no connection with our national theatre. The logical solution is for the Abbey Theatre to be based at the old Carlton site on O'Connell Street. That would make sense.