Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I fully accept that the recruitment environment in the health service is challenging, and that we operate within a global labour market for many of these consultancy positions but also for nursing positions. Highly educated consultants, nurses and midwives from Ireland are sought after in other countries and we operate very much in a global environment. I do not accept the comments without a degree of context, however, because if I was take them without context it would suggest fewer consultants are working in the health service but that is not true. An additional 115 consultants are working in the Irish health service compared with 12 months ago. While I take the Deputy's point about there being much more to do despite the large number of vacant posts, which is a statement of fact beyond dispute, there were 115 more consultants working in the public health service in September 2018 than in September 2017. Similarly, there are 523 more consultants working in the health service than five years ago. Nonetheless, I accept there are challenges with the number of doctors working in the health service, as there are with nurses.

The issue of new entrant pay must be examined, just as it was examined within other elements of the public service. The Public Service Pay Commission, PSPC is a structure we set up to examine the issue of recruitment and retention, and, in fairness, it was supported by the Deputy's party. It made a number of suggestions, all of which were accepted by Government but it also found a further process should be considered as to how the State and consultants could engage on the issue of new entrant pay. That decision is not one for me exclusively but rather for me with colleagues across Government, although I would like to see the issue advanced.

On the issue of consultants in Crumlin hospital which the Deputy raised, I would be happy to send some information on the matter to him and the committee. The information suggests, as the Deputy also did, that pay is an issue but not the sole issue. I recently met the Children's hospital group, which was able to tell me there has been a significant increase in the number of people who want to work as clinicians in our children's hospitals, which the group explains is partly because there will be €1 billion in infrastructure that will give our clinicians more theatre space and better, modern facilities and research capacity. When I meet consultants, as I do, they tell me that while pay is an element, being able to see their patients and ensuring their patients have beds and theatres are also elements.

The issue of non-engagement with the IHCA is not borne out by fact. My Department was represented at a ministerial level at its conference, at which I know the Deputy was also in attendance. I am familiar with its issues.

On the INMO, there is ongoing engagement. I hope we can find a way of resolving what is a brewing industrial relations dispute, but parties to the pay agreement undertook not to submit new pay claims during the duration of that agreement. I do not mean to speak for Fianna Fáil but I think it holds a similar position to the Government on the matter. Parties to the public service stability agreement signed up to it and, as a result, are subject to the terms and conditions of it. The PSPC wants to see additional resources put in the pockets of nurses, whether by allowances, resolving the new entrant pay issue or enabling them to become a senior staff nurse at an earlier point in their careers.

While much more must be done to support our nurses, such as increased financial remuneration, we asked the PSPC, rather than a bunch of politicians, to examine how recruitment and retention in nursing can be fixed and it reverted with a series of recommendations. The Government adopted them in full and wants to deliver on them in 2019. In the budget architecture, the Deputy's party and mine agreed we have funded that. I would like to engage with the INMO on other issues in the health service that could assist and support nurses in doing their jobs, as well as on many other matters that would be inappropriate for me to raise in this forum because discussions are ongoing. There are other approaches, aside from pay, that I am sure could assist our nurses working in a challenging environment.