Ms Phil Ní Sheaghdha:

The increase in the number of staff nurses, the front-line grade, has been quite modest. Some 230 were hired in the past year. We rely very heavily on our student population. We saw that during the pandemic when unqualified students were redeployed and worked as healthcare assistants while fourth-year students worked on the wards. Great thanks are due to them for doing so.

It is not a competition. The health service is short on staff at all grades, although most particularly those grades that work on the front line. We are certainly not satisfied that shortage is being measured properly. For example, staffing levels in services for the care of older persons are determined by cost of care, which is to say what can be afforded rather than what would provide the best outcome for patients. We now have two scientific policies, which have thankfully been adopted as Government policy. These determine scientifically the staffing, including the ratio and mix, required. As I said earlier, in the acute hospital sector, 80% of staff should be nursing staff and 20% healthcare assistants. That kind of staffing results in better outcomes for patients. We are nowhere near that.

What the research into that scientific piece of work found is that it actually saves money because it increases attendance, cuts down on burnout and reduces the length of stay of patients because their outcomes are better, as the care gets to them quicker. We know what the answers are. We have the policies. What we need now is to ensure that the Department of Health, the HSE and the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform back it up and that they fund the workforce plans. They have to fund the workforce plans based on science, not availability of resources, because when it is based on availability of resources, that says to the front-line workers that the health service can only afford X number of us and we should get on with it. We do not accept that and we have never accepted it.