Mr. John McCamley:

There needs to be a systemic change of culture regarding what happens if an assault takes place. The onus is on the staff member to report to the Garda that he or she has been assaulted, whereas in other sectors in which I have worked, the organisation involved would make that approach to the Garda. I have dealt with a lot of cases in the health service where the manager will maintain that the person has the opportunity to make a complaint at a Garda station. I do not think the onus should be on the staff member.

Equally, in respect of security on site, I am aware of a small hospital that shares an outsourced security service with other HSE facilities in the town. There is no on-site security, so the hospital has to ring for security to come, which means that the provision of security is dealt with by the staff, whether a nurse, a porter or a healthcare assistant, and that is incredibly dangerous. To cut costs, a decision is made whereby it is deemed okay to have security shared between three sites, with one security staff at night trying to cover three sites in a small town. That is a recipe for disaster, and it has definitely led to cases where staff have been assaulted. There needs to be far more investment in security. The outsourcing of security, in many facilities, has not worked. When there are directly employed security workers, that system tends to be staffed better because there will be direct engagement with the employer that is employing those security workers.