Mr. Liam Berney:

The Deputy made a point about a so-called habit of the trade union movement of having knock-on claims arising. That is a bit of a myth, frankly. We pioneered reforms in the health service whereby health care assistants were introduced and there were no repercussive claims. If he takes the time to look at the submission ICTU made to the Joint Committee on the Future of Healthcare, he will see that we place major emphasis on the need for reform in the health sector and the need for portability of skills. There are things nurses currently do which other grades could perhaps do. There are things doctors do that may be more appropriate to nurses. There is a whole process of organisational reform that could happen within the health service to address some of the problems to which the Deputy referred. He talked about nurses leaving en masseto go to the UK. There is an argument that we are not providing sufficient university places to train nurses. If we are currently providing 1,000 places a year, perhaps what the system needs is 2,000. It might not be simply that there are more attractive health systems abroad.