I will speak about the ambulance dispute, which has stopped for the moment. I will go back to the start of it. When we ring for an ambulance, we do not care what qualifications the people have. We just want to know they will do the job we trust them to do. We rely on them so much. It does not make sense to me that the HSE is talking about having conditions before going into negotiations. We cannot end a dispute if there are predetermined conditions before negotiations even start. I have spoken to ambulance personnel who have spent years training and upskilling. Their job role has changed and we all spoke about this yesterday. What struck me when listening to some of their concerns is that many people in the ambulance service want to remain as drivers or want to drop down to be drivers. They do not want to have an extra role. There is a fear that the driving role is being handed over to private companies, which is a real issue.

This is about how we are handing over public services to private providers. I again question the Government's attitude towards State-led childcare. This morning I heard Tigers Childcare, which has been in receipt of public money for years, including core funding in the early years sector, has been sold to UK-based Kids Planet Day Nurseries for €75 million. Kids Planet is owned by Fremman Capital which has assets under management valued at €3.6 billion. Is this who we want running our childcare? We can see the same thing is happening with nursing homes. For example, I have raised an issue in Sligo with regard to elderly people in a retirement village. They are being operated by big multinational private companies with investments in private companies.

Is this who we want running our ambulance service, our childcare or any of our essential public services that should be provided by the State? We are handing them over. There is a lot more to this dispute. To go back to the ambulance service personnel, they have upskilled. They have spent time and money upskilling. It beggars belief that we are already on the first step. Yesterday's strike has ended but already there are preconditions prior to the next day of action on 19 May. This is no way to enter negotiations, with the Government and the HSE already saying if the personnel do this then they cannot do that. We need to be very aware that we are continuously moving to the privatisation of public services.