More than 600 new staff will be recruited by the National Ambulance Service as part of an investment package agreed at the Workplace Relations Commission.

Strike action scheduled for next Wednesday has also been called off as a result of the deal.

Unions representing workers met with the HSE and the Department of Health yesterday, where demands of compensation and future investment in the service were met.

A total of 150 new emergency technicians for the Intermediate Care Service will be taken on over the next two years, and 461 additional paramedics will be recruited over 5 years.

Siptu’s Health Division organiser Paul Bell said that the recruitment process for these positions will begin immediately.

“That’s the assurance we’ve been given, so we’re quite satisfied that that will be honoured,” he said.

“We’re also quite satisfied that the Department of Health will ensure that whatever commitments have been made will be underwritten by them, because at the end of the day, the public ambulance service requires an investment that has lacked in that investment for the last number of years, even if the demands on it have grown on the service right throughout the country.”