Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Mr. Reid rightly praised the healthcare workers earlier. We all praise our heroic healthcare workers. How does that correctly given praise tally with the decision to recruit healthcare workers and nurses who volunteered to answer the call from Ireland through temporary agency contracts provided by for-profit groups such as CPL Resources? Those contracts are the worst of all possible contracts. Under them, the company will not make any payment for a day on which an employee does not attend for work. This appears in these contracts under the heading "Sick pay". I mentioned earlier a nurse who, two weeks ago, was recruited, via CPL, to a Dublin hospital. She has since tested positive for Covid-19 and will not be paid under her contract. Is that how to treat our heroic nurses, particularly when we need permanent increases in healthcare worker, nurse and staff capacity? Who made the decision to recruit people via temporary agency contracts rather than directly through the HSE? The nurse to whom I refer has to self-isolate in City West. When she asked how to get to City West, she was told to get a taxi. When she asked if the taxi driver would have PPE, and know that his or her passenger was Covid-19 positive, she received no real response. That is not how we need to treat our healthcare workers.

What I am saying has important ramifications when we consider that the number of people on trolleys has risen to 114. We have been talking here about people being in the same room for two hours. There are 114 people in hospitals today who are in close proximity to each other and who will be waiting for hours for healthcare to be provided to them. Is it not the case that this is contrary to public health guidance and that there should be zero tolerance for people on trolleys in emergency departments? The only way to address that is by rapidly increasing the level of permanent staffing within and other capacities of our health service, and not via temporary agency contracts.