Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 13 November 2019

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health

Workforce Planning in the Irish Health Sector: Discussion (Resumed)

Photo of Bernard DurkanBernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We have come across that. We will take it up again. We will take it up with the HSE as well. I would like to ask Ms Ní Sheaghdha about the need for more undergraduate places. What is her view on the wisdom of increasing the number of undergraduate places here, bearing in mind the extent to which they tend to go abroad afterwards? It is generally accepted that it is not rewarding, from the point of view of the delivery of health services in this jurisdiction, for large numbers of medical and nursing graduates to go abroad, perhaps after staying at home for a year. A pattern must be identified as we look at what will happen if we end up handing over our graduates to the highest bidder after we have trained them. That is where we are going. We have dealt with this matter here. At a meeting here not so long ago, we were told by the HSE that we have to compete with Canada, Sydney, New York and the Middle East every time a post is advertised. In some of those jurisdictions, tax-free salaries of up to €120,000 are available. We cannot compete with that here.

In order to retain a reasonable staffing level and thereby provide a secure health service, how can we encourage graduates to remain here or encourage graduates from abroad to come here? Must we train staff from overseas in our training schools to try to provide the service expected and, in the course of doing so, improve the quality of life for staff at all levels in the health service? It is a convoluted way to ask the question. Ms Ní Sheaghdha has heard it before.

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