Gino Kenny (Dublin Mid West, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I apologise for being late. I was attending another engagement. One of the narratives we have seen in the committee is the retention of staff in the health service. It is a crisis. Some of my questions have already been answered. On the issue of retaining staff, obviously it is not just about pay but also about working conditions. I worked in the health service previously and I know how stressful the job and environment can be. Sometimes one is dealing with life and death and very stressful situations. It is a difficult job and the burnout rate is quite high. I have friends who are psychiatric nurses and general nurses. They find the job extremely rewarding. They do not do it for the money but to give something back. They love the job but they find it extremely stressful, be it on the wards or elsewhere. That comes with the job but it is probably amplified now more than ever because of conditions in the health service, cutbacks and so forth.

I have a question about other jurisdictions. I am sure other jurisdictions probably have a similar situation with retention of staff. We know that nurses are going to Australia but I am sure Australia has a situation where it cannot retain nurses. Is that the case? In other jurisdictions, particularly Britain, there are incentives for keeping staff, such as rental accommodation where rent is very reasonable in a costly rental market.

Is that possible when there is a housing crisis in Ireland? I do not know if it is possible. Can there be an incentive for retaining staff, particularly staff who have emigrated and want to come back? Such people might look at their balance sheet and decide that it is not worth their while to return because of the cost of living. Could the Government provide for those people, especially around accommodation?

I will probably ask the following questions of everyone appearing before the committee. How bad is the situation now? How bad might it get? Can it get much worse? How good was the situation previously, and how did we arrive at the situation where staff are haemorrhaging from the health service? There are many reasons for this, but I believe the main reason is the pay on offer. How has this situation arisen and how bad could it get? Non-retention of staff - as was the case when I worked in the area - lack of co-ordination, lack of clarity and a lack of familiarity with patients can have a major detrimental effect on service users and the health service in general. My questioning approach has been a bit scattergun, but I would like to hear the witnesses discuss the retention of staff. Could the situation get worse?