Ms Phil Ní Sheaghdha:

The Deputy is correct. The progress we made, which is Government policy and which we were very supportive of, was the policy framework on safe staffing on surgical and medical wards for nurses and healthcare assistants. This is a measurement tool that determines how many are needed. When this framework was piloted in Beaumont, Loughlinstown and Our Lady of Lourdes in Drogheda, it proved to do a number of things. The main one was that it cut the spend on agency staff significantly - from 100 to 30 was one of the examples given. It improved the patient experience significantly, reduced the length of stay in an acute hospital, which is the most expensive part of our healthcare provision, improved retention of staff and improved and reduced burnout and sick leave. It ticks all of the boxes from a patient perspective and from an economic perspective because it saves money.

The agreement, as part of our strike settlement, was that that would be funded in 2019 outside of the service plan to the tune of €5 million and that, in the service plan for this year, which covers 2020 and 2021, there would be sufficient funding available to roll it out across all of the remaining hospitals. We met the HSE last evening and we asked what is the progress, where is the service plan and how much is being assigned to the framework. Clearly, if, in a strike settlement which covers from May to the end of the year, one is allocating €5 million, one will need to allocate a minimum of €10 million for a full year. They were unable to tell us. It is still, they tell us, a dialogue between the HSE, the Department of Health and the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. We are very clear this is part of the strike settlement and it has to be funded and implemented. Otherwise, it is a breach of the agreement.