500 ambulance service personnel plan to go on strike for three days

Ambulance staff say they plan to strike for three days in the coming weeks.

The strike has been caused by a 'dispute over trade union representation rights and the deduction of union subscriptions at source from their pay'. This news comes as the nurses strike goes into its third day. The 500 staff members planning to strike are part of NASRA (National Ambulance Service Representative Association). Two strike days are to happening this month with the last taking place in March. As it stands the strike days will be February 15, February 28 and March 1. They will be held from 7 am to 5 pm each day. A ten hour strike already took place last month in January but the members of NASRA feel that the issue has not been resolved. During that strike the army were deployed to deal with emergencies. According to the Irish Times Nasra’s national chairwoman Sinead McGrath said asked Minister for Health Simon Harris;

“to avoid this further escalation in this dispute and instruct the HSE to engage with the industrial relations machinery to end this dispute and allow ambulance personnel the right to be members and represented by the trade union of their choice”.

The first strike day will take place next Friday.