Ambulance personnel members of the Psychiatric Nurses Association (PNA) are striking for two consecutive days over a dispute on union recognition.

They are striking Thursday and Friday over the Health Service Executive's (HSE) refusal to allow them to join and be represented by the PNA.

The two-day national strike by over 500 PNA ambulance branch members includes paramedics, advanced paramedics and emergency medical technicians.

The action will run from 7.00am to 5.00pm each day.

The strike action is a further escalation by ambulance personnel to be represented by the union of their choice, and not by a trade union the HSE wants them to join.

It follows previous strikes on January 22nd and February 15th.

Ambulance personnel members of PNA voted overwhelmingly in September 2018 for industrial action.

The PNA said the HSE has "made absolutely no effort" to address or resolve the dispute.

Peter Hughes is PNA general-secretary: "The HSE have chosen to ignore repeated offers by PNA to attend WRC talks on this dispute.

"HSE have further ignored the calls by Minister for Health, Simon Harris and many other Dáil deputies to resolve this dispute through negotiation rather than confrontation.

"Instead, the HSE has chosen to inflame the situation by refusing to recognise the right of ambulance personnel to be members of a branch of the PNA despite the fact that PNA ambulance branch represents more members by far than at least one of the two unions recognised by the HSE for frontline paramedics".