Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail)
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304. To ask the Minister for Health his plans to put ambulance service staff on the same footing as other uniformed services from the point of view of pay, conditions and pensions; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [3293/18]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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The Public Service Stability Agreement includes a commitment for an exercise to be conducted by the Public Service Pay Commission on the issue of recruitment and retention in the public service. The Commission identified recruitment difficulties in the case of some specific and specialist groups across the public service. This included certain areas the health sector, including the ambulance service.

The Commission has commenced the second phase of its work. This work is being carried out in modules. The first module will involve health sector areas of nursing, consultants and non-consultant hospital doctors. The second module will involve further health professions and will look at recruitment and retention issues specific to ambulance grades. This module will start later this year. The Commission will report by the end of this year. The outcome of the Commission's assessment will then be the subject of discussion between the relevant parties. It is accepted by all parties to the Public Service Stability Agreement that the output from this exercise will not give rise to any cross-sectoral relativity claims.