Over 500 Ambulance Personnel To Protest

Ambulance personnel members of the Psychiatric Nurses Association (PNA) are set to protest at parliament buildings today, Thursday 04 July, in their continued campaign for recognised union status.

Over 400 PNA members, including paramedics and emergency medical technicians, will take action amid their fight to join and be represented by their union of choice.

The action will take place at Leinster House from 12.30pm to 2.30pm, with a further 24-hour national strike planned from 2pm on Friday 19 July.

Peter Hughes, the PNA General Secretary, said ambulance personnel members are determined that Oireachtas members will hear a very clear message before the Dail summer recess.

He said: "The message is unchanged – ambulance personnel, who established their own branch within the PNA ten years ago, demand the right to be members of PNA as the union of their choice and will not be forced by the HSE to join another union that they do not want to be members of. While our campaign has been encouraged by the growing level of political support in Leinster House, we are calling on all Oireachtas members to support ambulance personnel in demanding a basic right for workers to join the union of their choice.

"It is a disgrace that ambulance personnel are being forced by the HSE to hold another 24 hour strike in a vital front line emergency service. This is a situation that these professional, highly dedicated workers have said they do not want to be in. However, they are left with no option in the face of an inexplicable intransigence by the HSE and a refusal to acknowledge the clearly expressed wishes of ambulance personnel to be members of, and represented by PNA – a trade union of over 49 years' experience in representing workers within the health and social care services.

"As we move towards another 24 hour strike action in the national ambulance service I am calling on the new HSE Director General, Paul Reid to bring this dispute to an end finally and allow ambulance personnel members of the PNA to get on with providing their vital services."



(JG/CM)