Gino Kenny (Dublin Mid West, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I am happy enough with that. It is really important that the witnesses are highlighting this issue today. Obviously, student nurses highlighted the issue earlier this year with regard to unpaid work. That goes across the allied professionals and the health service where a whole cohort on the front line are not getting paid for the work they are doing. That is leading to a huge amount of disillusionment and disparity between those who have resources to overcome that and those who do not.

At a time when we need people like Ms Thomas, who are educated and willing to be on the front line of our mental health situation, it does not make sense that we are putting all these barriers in front of this profession to make it much more difficult for people to qualify. What happens then is that people emigrate and some do not come back. They have been educated here and they want to give something back. This needs to be addressed, hopefully, as soon as possible. I thank everybody for coming in.