Ambulance paramedics from all over the State are arriving at the gates of Leinster House as we speak, demanding that the union of choice for 500 ambulance personnel be recognised. They have just announced their eighth day of strike action will take place on 19 July in opposition to what they rightly see as union-busting policy. It is clear that these ambulance workers are not going to go away. Will the Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, instruct the HSE to enter into talks with them?

Correspondence was sent to the Minister for Health, signed by Members of the Dáil from across political parties, requesting a face-to-face meeting to discuss our concerns on this issue and the Minister has not given us the courtesy of anything other than the response, "We note receipt of your letter." Before this Government is out the gap for the summer recess, will the Minister, Deputy Doherty, meet the Minister, Deputy Harris, tap him on the shoulder and tell him to cop himself on and meet a cross-party delegation?

There are four Deputies who wish to be associated with this matter, which they can do in two ways. They can either say they wish to be associated or they can make a very brief intervention. I remind the House that this issue was raised as a Topical Issue yesterday and the appropriate Minister responded. I call Deputy Gerry Adams.

As we sit here, ambulance staff and members of the Psychiatric Nurses Association are protesting outside the gates of Leinster House, demanding their right under Article 40 of the Constitution to join a union of their choice. They are being denied the right to join a union of their choice. This is the eighth protest in the last seven months and a further strike is proposed for 19 July in Louth, Dundalk and other places. Will the Minister, Deputy Doherty, join in calling on the HSE to recognise the constitutional right of a worker to join a trade union of their choice and will she urge the HSE to respond to the invitations it has received from the Workplace Relations Commission to attend talks to resolve this issue?

I call Deputy Carol Nolan.

I want to add my voice to that call. I have stood with the paramedics who were forced into taking strike action. It is an action they did not take lightly. I know from a response to a parliamentary question that they responded to over 34,000 overtime calls last year. They do fantastic work and they deserve respect and the right to join the union of their choice.

We get the point. I call Deputy Thomas Pringle and I ask him to be brief.

I agree with what has been said.

Will others take a leaf from his book? I call Deputy Joan Collins.

I will. I was one of the signatories to the letter to the Minister for Health requesting a meeting. The Minister responded in April that he would not agree to that meeting but that he would instruct his departmental officials to speak to the HSE. We raised it yesterday as a Topical Issue but we did not get a satisfactory response. We now have the situation where the Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, Mr. Paul Reid, the new CEO of the HSE, the Minister of State, Deputy Jim Daly, Members of the Dáil and workers who are on strike are calling for a resolution. Nobody wants confrontation. The Government has to stop paying lip service, take the reins and find a resolution. I ask the Minister, Deputy Doherty, to instruct the HSE to discuss it with the workers directly or instruct the HSE to go to the Workplace Relations Commission, which has requested three times already that it do so.

I call Deputy Peadar Tóibín. Do you have anything additional to add?

These are front-line healthcare workers doing a very important job that is very stressful, difficult and onerous yet their simple request that they can select their own representatives to deal in the industrial relations process is being denied to them. It is beyond time that the HSE and the Government met face-to-face with these people to discuss this issue.

Do you wish to endorse, Deputy Paul Murphy?

I do. How many times are the workers to be forced to come into the Visitors Gallery to hear the same answers, to protest and to strike for their right to join a union of their choice? The Government should instruct the HSE to stop wasting public money paying lawyers to talk to the workers because it refuses to do so itself. The HSE should sit down with the workers, stop its union busting tactics and stop sending the signal to the private sector that union busting is encouraged by the Government.

I thank all of the Deputies who have raised concerns. None of us wants anybody out on strike. We would love to see a resolution to this particular issue, which is ongoing for a while. I am not, obviously, 100% au fait with it, but I do not think it is fair to say that people have been denied their constitutional right to join a union. They have joined a union. The difficulty is that the HSE refuses to recognise that union. To be fair to the Minister, he asked his officials to engage with HSE management to explore how this issue can be resolved before we get to the strikes on 19 and 20 July. Those discussions have taken place. Obviously, a resolution has not been found because it if had we would not be having this conversation. The discussions will not stop until a resolution is found.