Ms Phil Ní Sheaghdha:

In 2017, we negotiated through the Workplace Relations Commission a funded workforce plan for nursing and midwifery and the numbers were set out within each of the categories. That was to be repeated in November 2018 and November 2019, and it has not been. A workforce plan is grand in theory but it has to be funded, so the key is that we get a funded workforce plan. The funded workforce plan for 2017 was fairly modest, considering our turnaround. We know how many nurses we need to recruit in order to just replace those who retire and resign. The workforce plan was designed in that year with the assistance of the WRC to ensure we at least broke even at the end of the year. However, as I reported earlier to the committee, we know now that we are further behind in 2019 than we were in 2017. For example, the maternity strategy required an increase of just over 240 midwives to maintain a safe level of care, given 1:29 births is the threshold. Dr. Peter Boylan was on radio this weekend describing what it means for situations in maternity hospitals and general hospitals when there are two midwives looking after a very large volume of very seriously ill patients, and the consequences of that.