I raise the proposed reforms in the roles and responsibilities report for the National Ambulance Service. As the Tánaiste will be aware, this time next week, SIPTU members and the National Ambulance Service are due to ballot for industrial action because the pay claim in relation to the proposed reforms is not being progressed. This report began with management in the HSE and the National Ambulance Service in line with the workers. There are a whole host of reforms across the National Ambulance Service, including increased pay scales, more ambulances, and doubling the numbers of workers. An awful lot of service level arrangements have and are being implemented but the pay levels have not been reformed. It is the view of SIPTU, and one which I support, that the business case for this is not a pay claim; this is from management. The management needs to find the money for these reforms as it is the management's plan that is being implemented and it should fall outside the Building Momentum negotiations.

As the Deputy is aware, we are not in a position where we can say that management says its staff needs a pay rise therefore we simply take that out of the national pay agreements and give them the pay rise. The Deputy's party is signed up to it as is Government and these kind of issues are public sector pay issues, which need to form part of broader discussions in terms of public sector pay. The Minister for Finance, Deputy McGrath, and the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform, Deputy Donohoe, are now looking at the next round of that but it would not be the case normally that simply because a management team says in good faith that it recommends a pay rise for its workers, that this can simply be lifted out of the national pay agreements. It is something the Department is engaged in. I appreciate the Deputy signalling that it is in the context of a very significant increase in funding, capacity and work coming from our excellent ambulance services.