Annie Hoey (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses. I have only been in this role for two years and we have had Covid in the middle of all of that. However, it seems this predates Covid. It seems we are constantly talking about what could be, but I do not know where the movement is coming from to make that a reality. Maybe that is because I am being cynical. We in the Labour Party are enormous supporters of a single-tier healthcare system, so it is very frustrating, and I can only imagine how frustrating it is for the witnesses. I am sitting here, looking at the whole thing, and it is immensely frustrating.

I want to raise two other issues. Is it fair to say overcrowding and what the witnesses are describing is having an impact on recruitment? I think it is having an impact, particularly on nursing, and I do not know that we have fully got to grips with this in terms of the impact it is having. The witnesses might be able to expand on this. I talk to a number of student nurses and midwives and my mouth nearly hits the floor whenever one of them says, “I am going to stay and try to work in emergency.” I reply “What?” because it seems crazy to me. It is unusual for me to know someone who says they are going to stay here. It is fair to say it is impacting on recruitment but perhaps the witnesses would expand further on that. Core pay is a core issue but I also think we are not getting to grips with the wider issue. We talk about overcrowding in terms of it being bad for the patient and so on, but this obviously has a long-term impact on our ability even to roll out Sláintecare because we are just not at it, so to speak.