The staff of the ambulance services are currently balloting for industrial action. The ballot will take place over the next four weeks. Should this develop into strike action, the impact will be catastrophic. The reason for this ballot is that changes have been implemented unilaterally by the HSE and the management of the National Ambulance Service. One of the changes will mean that trainee paramedics who have completed their degrees and have been working with ambulance crews over the last three years will no longer enter into full-time positions in the National Ambulance Service. Additionally, the situation currently is that staff are deployed to another base only if it is no more than 45 km from the one where they are currently stationed. Management now wants to change that to have three regions in the country, which could mean going over 200 km and more. What will people with mortgages do? Imagine what it would mean in terms of people having to travel at the end of a 13- or 14-hour shift.

We badly need additional staff in the ambulance services, as the National Ambulance Service has only about 60% of the numbers we need. We have spent €16 million on training 400 of these staff currently, and then we are going to make it as hard as possible for them to come into the service. The iron-fist approach of management has to be halted. I am asking the Tánaiste and the Minister for Health, Deputy Carroll MacNeill, to intervene, restore some level of common sense and ensure that these young, highly skilled workers are brought into the service and strike action is averted. We cannot have strike action in the ambulance service. There is a complete breakdown between the unions and the management here. It has been an iron-fist approach, and someone needs to have a chat with the management in the HSE and the National Ambulance Service.

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue and bringing it to my attention. I will certainly speak with the Minister for Health on foot of him raising this issue here today.

I would make the point broadly that any dispute gets resolved by people engaging. I certainly hope we do not get into a position of seeing an industrial dispute that causes a disruption to service. I know nobody will want that, including people who do an excellent job in the service. I hope we can find through the mechanisms available an opportunity for substantive engagement. I will certainly pass on the Deputy's views to the Minister for Health.

It is four weeks.