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

It is positive that people are not waiting years for basic procedures. There are people who have a different experience from that. I do not want to be negative but there have been incidents where people have been waiting for days to be seen in emergency departments. That is just not acceptable. I have raised this on numerous occasions. This is happening in a lot of emergency departments, and it is not the staff's fault. This is related to capacity and so forth and factors that should have been foreseen.

My final question is about retention and recruitment of staff. This is a huge challenge, not only for the Irish health service but across the world. One factor that is a driving force in the retention of staff is the cost-of-living crisis and the availability of accommodation for healthcare staff.

If one is trying to recruit people from outside the State they will look at wages and so forth but also accommodation. It is extremely difficult to get any sort of accommodation, particularly in Dublin. I know the HSE said in the past it is not in the game of building such real estate on its properties and so forth but has it ever looked at a situation where accommodation could be provided on campus for nursing staff, whether coming from the State or outside the State? I think this could be a factor in trying to keep people in Ireland because people are leaving and they look at the circumstances they are up against. Accommodation is probably a big factor in keeping qualified people here and getting people to come to Ireland to stay here. I would like to hear Mr. Mulvany's commentary on that.