Cork ambulance services will be 'significantly impacted' by industrial action
Ambulances lined up outside the National Ambulance Service base at the Kinsale Road Business Park in Cork yesterday as a work-to-rule took place. Picture: Chani Anderson.
Ambulance services will be significantly impacted by industrial action this week, the Health Service Executive (HSE) has warned.
The organisation said the public should still call emergency services if urgent medical care is needed.
Members of the Siptu and Unite unions imposed work-to-rule action on Monday and a 24-hour stoppage today.
In a statement, the HSE said: “During the rolling industrial actions, the capacity of the National Ambulance Service (NAS) to respond will be significantly impacted.”
Under contingency plans, the 999 phone service will be fully operational, and priority will be given to patients experiencing emergencies like heart attacks or with serious injuries from road accidents.
The HSE said there will be delays in responding to non-life-threatening calls.
Last month, ambulance personnel with the unions voted in favour of industrial action.
It will involve members working as emergency medical technicians (EMTs), paramedics, advanced paramedics, paramedic specialists and paramedic supervisors.
They say it is a result of a failure to implement the recommendations of a 2020 report, which looked at changes to the roles of ambulance workers.
The unions say qualifications, clinical responsibilities and operational duties of personnel have expanded significantly over the last two decades.
Unite said the Roles and Responsibilities Review “recommended enhanced pay scales to reflect the growing professionalisation of the service” but “those recommendations have not been implemented”.
The organisation’s general secretary Sharon Gaham said: “It is scandalous that these frontline workers have been waiting for six years for their skills and expertise to be recognised.”
Siptu’s ambulance sector organiser, John McCamley, said: “Members have been left with no option but to issue a strike notice due to this long-running dispute.”
He added that the industrial action is “an indication of the depth of feeling within the service that their sacrifice and commitment over the last 20 years to the professionalisation and modernisation of the service have been forgotten about by the HSE”.
The HSE said it “regrets” the unions’ decision to take industrial action and has engaged “intensively” with them with the involvement of the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC).
They said proposals aimed at resolving the dispute were recommended to members by both unions.
According to the HSE, proposals included 3-14% pay improvements, on top of a 9.25% increase under the 2024-2026 Public Sector Pay Agreement.
The service said that in September 2025, it was informed by the two unions that the proposals had been rejected by their members.
The HSE also said that between 2022 and 2025, NAS was the focus of “a major transformation and investment programme”.
It said while the HSE and the Government accept “the need to both increase and modernise pay arrangements” for ambulance staff, they are “also obliged to ensure that in exchange for significant increases in pay, our services can continue to transform to meet the needs of the public”.
The unions have planned more strikes if the dispute is not resolved.
Siptu has said a 48-hour strike is being organised for May 19, a 72-hour one for May 26 and further action for June.
The HSE said other health services will operate normally during the industrial action and patients will be contacted if there are any changes to their planned care.
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