Fiona O'Loughlin (Kildare South, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Mr. Duffy and the witnesses. They have done very valuable work on the report they have prepared for us. I have a few key observations and questions. It is interesting to note the comments on the number of this year's school leavers who have looked at careers in nursing and undergraduate medical programmes. Approximately 5,000 young people wanted to choose nursing.

These areas are oversubscribed. Approximately 2,500 opted for medical undergraduate programmes. We do not seem to have a problem attracting young people into the area. The State is spending lot of money on ensuring these young people have a very good third level education experience and come out very well qualified. The key issue is to ensure they have the opportunity and desire to stay in our country and enter into the services where they are so badly needed. There certainly is a lesson in this. Obviously the country is not doing enough to ensure these young people become part of the necessary and essential workforce to look after and care for people here.

The witnesses identified particular areas other than remuneration coming up as problems. The Psychiatric Nurses Association came before the committee and suggested subsidised accommodation should be offered to nurses to mitigate the high cost of living, particularly in the Dublin area. Is this something the witnesses could see as a possibility? With regard to geographic trends established on the non-retention of staff, the obvious links to the cost of living and availability of housing and remuneration not being the main issue, the witnesses spoke about mentoring, staff engagement, access to training and promotion as key areas that could be looked at. There certainly are areas we should look at. Do the witnesses have more guidance on these?

The area we are particularly concerned with is that of attracting professionals to mental health services. It is particularly disconcerting to see the decline in the number of psychiatric staff nurses. The area of intellectual disability, in which I have a particular interest, has been mentioned. Do these sectors need to look at increased incentives? We absolutely need to be able to increase the number of support nurses and staff in this area. Over the summer, my colleague, Deputy James Browne, highlighted the numbers. We are down 90% of the people we should have and this is at crisis point. Given our ageing population, what moneys have been set aside to deal with the increasing number of dementia diagnoses? This also leads to the mental health area. There are difficulties with dual diagnosis and people with intellectual disabilities can have mental health issues. There is an impact on all of them.

As the report indicates, the European Commission estimated a potential shortfall of approximately 1 million health workers in the EU by 2020. Irish healthcare staff are very much in demand abroad because it is recognised we have a very good training system. Many of our emigrants show little desire to return. Sláintecare emphasises the urgent need to plan our workforce better. Do the witnesses think we are making any progress in this regard? It is absolutely key.