Ms Phil Ní Sheaghdha:

In the survey Ms Kelleher referenced, while the intention to leave is increasing, we are also noticing nurses and midwives retiring well ahead of their retirement date. They are actually retiring early. That means they do not see their future in the health service because they cannot work in that situation. As an example, I will give the committee a comment from one of our members who works in one of the busy Dublin charity hospitals. The hospital had 8,500 births but is only staffed for 5,500 births. It is impossible to keep going to work and feel protected. Assaults on nurses and midwives have increased from 3,465 in 2023 to well over 4,000 in the first half of this year alone. That is not a service. An employer can say it has an employee assist programme, which was one of the questions asked, but that is after you are assaulted. Employees can then have a phone call with a counsellor. We want preventative measures, not post-event measures. Intention to leave was way too high among public health nurses and community general nurses we surveyed recently. It is a combination of poor staffing levels and the focus not being on safety.

It is important to state we do not want a free-for-all in respect of recruitment. We want recruitment to meet already measured safety levels. That is not happening. That is the distinction. In places like California and south Australia, where there is a nurse to patient ratio of 1:4, retention is really good. When places are staffed properly, nurses and midwives are drawn to those areas. They want to work in those locations and they stay working in those locations.