Ambulance drivers in Waterford city have begun a campaign of industrial action over what they say are appalling working conditions.
The action will result in certain paperwork not being completed but will not affect the service provided to the public.
Mr Clive O'Regan, a shop steward with the ATGWU, which represents the ambulance personnel, said he and his colleagues had moved into a building in the grounds of Waterford Regional Hospital 10 years ago for just three weeks but were still there.
He said conditions in the ambulance station were "very poor" and the deficiencies had been highlighted in two separate reports by health and safety officers.
"We have no proper changing facilities for ambulance crews, our kitchen facilities are too small, and we only have a shower hose in an old bath to wash down equipment from accidents," he said. "We also have holes in the roof of the building," he added.
Mr O'Regan said funding had been expected from the National Development Plan for the construction of a new centre but this hadn't materialised.
"We want the basic facilities improved while we wait for that," he said.
"We had a ballot on industrial action, informed the health board of the outcome and met it last week but that failed to resolve the matter," he added. The action, which may be stepped up if no resolution is found quickly, now involves ambulance personnel not putting incident numbers on patient report forms, not putting medical priority dispatch codes on 999 calls and not giving radio codes to the ambulance control centre for the south east in Wexford.
These measures will affect the compilation of statistics, including data on the length it takes to respond to calls.
The South Eastern Health Board said the provision of a new ambulance base in Waterford features in the National Development Plan.
A brief for the development has been prepared by the health board and sent to the Department of Health.
A decision is awaited on the approval to appoint a design team, a spokesman said.
"The SEHB understands the frustration of Waterford-based ambulance staff and has called on union representatives to refer the issue to the Labour Relations Commission," he added.