The National Ambulance Service has decided to no longer offer full-time contracts to graduating students.
According to SIPTU, around 80 newly-qualified graduates will not be offered permanent roles following their three years of training.
It says the HSE has told its members they don’t have the budgetary capacity to take on new members.
SIPTU is already balloting paramedics for industrial action over a separate dispute over an alleged failure to roll out enhanced pay scales.
The union’s Ambulance Sector Organiser, John McCamley, says this decision has only escalated the appetite for industrial action:
