Ambulance staff seek restoration of allowances worth €2,500

Staff in the HSE national ambulance service are seeking the re-introduction of allowances valued at about €2,500 per year which were abolished for new entrants taken on after 2012.

The trade union Siptu, which represents the staff, has told the HSE that it wants an immediate engagement aimed at ending the two-tier pay system in place in the national ambulance service.

The union said that staff recruited after 2012 were not paid either a cardiac allowance or a non-nursing Dublin travel allowance.

It said the Dublin travel allowance was worth €30 per week or about €1,500 per year while the cardiac allowance was worth€20 per week or about €1,000 per year.

Cardiac payment

These were among dozens of allowances scrapped by the then Government for staff recruited across the public service after autumn 2012.

Siptu said there were about 100 members not receiving the Dublin travel allowance and 320 not receiving the cardiac payment.

“This inequity in pay must cease and requires urgent attention in order to bring about pay equality across the pay scales applicable to the national ambulance service,” said Siptu health service division chief Paul Bell.

The move by the union follows a deal agreed in principle last week with firefighters by Labour ministers in the former government Brendan Howlin and Alan Kelly in which they signalled they were prepared in certain circumstances to abolish the controversial two-tier pay structure for post-2012 entrants.

In the case of the firefighters, the value of allowances scrapped for new entrants in 2012 would be incorporated into revised pay scales in return for for co-operation on productivity initiatives and a commitment to work within public service agreements such as the Lansdowne Road accord.

Under the move about 90 firefighters who were appointed to work in local authorities since 2012 would in effect regain a €4,500 rent allowance which was scrapped at that time .