Ambulance drivers to stage protest day

Ambulance drivers in Dublin, Wicklow and Kildare are to stage a one-day protest on March 5th claiming the Minister for Transport, Mr Brennan, has failed to protect them from penalty points and endorsements on their driving licences.

The staff of the Eastern Regional Ambulance Service, said they are subject to all driving offences, including speeding, even when they are responding to an emergency call.

In addition to mounting insurance costs, they now face the prospect of losing their licences and being unable to work if they accrue 12 penalty points.

"The Minister for Transport has failed to address an anomaly in the Road Traffic Acts, which means any emergency personnel can pick up endorsements for breaches of traffic regulations in the course of responding to life and death situations," said Mr Paul Bell, the secretary of SIPTU's Dublin Health Services branch.

Government standards dictate that ambulance drivers respond to emergency calls within eight minutes. This was impossible to achieve with the road traffic laws, he said. Luas works and numerous local authority projects in Dublin and the rest of the State were adding to the problems of ambulance driving in towns and cities.

While no driver in the eastern regional area had received penalty points, ambulance chiefs had been notified by the Garda that it intended to apply the sanction, Mr Bell said.

The solution would be the creation of separate emergency service driving licences, which drivers could use during their working day, thus protecting their personal licences from endorsement. "This present situation threatens to put these workers off the road and leave the public without vital emergency services."

The form of protest has not yet been decided, Mr Bell said, but it would not disrupt the service.

The Department of Transport said ambulance drivers are currently exempt from "a wide range" of traffic offences, including speeding. A spokesman said the Department had been approached by the emergency services seeking an exemption from the dangerous driving laws, for the first time in 40 years, and talks were ongoing.

The Garda Press Office said it was not aware of the ambulance service being warned that drivers would be liable for penalty points.