Matt Reid

We were dispatched from Arklow.

We're currently en route to Carlow, 91 kilometres away.

And on any given day, an Arklow ambulance could end up going to Carlow to do this call, which is coincidentally bringing us back into Dublin because it's a maternity call and the patient in question is going to a Dublin maternity hospital, which isn't unheard of.

So today we are travelling that distance, but yesterday we probably would have travelled that distance yesterday

irrespective of the strike that is currently ongoing today.

I'd be on the ticket line and the public support is immense.

Well, I don't know the geography of County Carlow, but it's the air code for Carlow.

But it was 90 kilometres to get to the patient.

We are currently 10 kilometres away.

So once I land on scene, if you're not finished with me, unfortunately, I will have to finish with you because I will have to do my job and look after the patient.

We're picketing at a last resort, Ciarán.

The McHugh Crabtree report was commissioned in late 2018 and continued for most of 2019, was published in 2020 and made certain recommendations about enhanced pay scales, specific job descriptions and we are now six years on trying to resolve and implement this report.

And the government, their silence is deafening, as the man would say.

It's within their power to solve this dispute.

They should solve this dispute.

I started in the job 26 years ago.

We brought everyone to hospital and we brought them at speed.

And the ambulance back then, some of them were still petrol and, by Jesus, they could move.

But

the equipment in the back of them and the level of training that we have or had back then is nothing compared to what we have now.