Dr. Gabrielle Colleran:

In answer to the Deputy's question, Members are very well staffed compared to the European average for parliamentary politicians. The Deputy's situation is a little bit different from ours.

On the serious matter of bullying, which does exist in medicine and in medicine in Ireland, it is not just non-consultant hospital doctors, NCHDs, who are bullied even though the rates of bullying for NCHDs are slightly higher than for consultants. The rate of bullying of consultants is also very high. Who does it? It is other consultants, managerial staff, nurses, patients and families. It is totally unacceptable but it reflects a system that is toxic from within, and some of that is down to the fact that people are too overstretched. One may dismiss this as if it does not matter but there is a lot of research on burnout and its impact on people. The first thing that happens is dehumanisation. If one is overworked to the point of being mentally affected by it, the first thing that happens is that it becomes easier to be rude, to be mean and to be difficult with others because one perceives oneself to be under inappropriate stress. Is this what we want? Is this a system in which people flourish? No, it is not. Part of changing this requires us to change the culture and what is acceptable. It is about safe staff, a high quality and safe service, open disclosure and a just culture. All of this comes back to having enough people on the team to provide the service. Many of us are on rosters with half the number of people we should have. We are providing 24-7 care. Many of us here on this panel will be up multiple times during the night and will still have worked the full day the previous day and will work a full day the day after. Many of us are operating in situations where our workloads are far in excess of what is safe. We are constantly trying to protect our patients from risk, trying to train our NCHDs, and we come under huge pressure. Is bullying ever acceptable? No, it is not. Has it been a problem in our system for years? Yes it has. Many of us here display leadership in being the change we want to see for our own teams and our own NCHDs. We need to have enough staff on the teams to be able to provide the service safely.