Ms Phil Ní Sheaghdha:

I am taking the period pre-July 2022, to date. Prior to that we had 39,000 whole-time equivalent nursing posts in December 2007. A moratorium was then introduced and approximately 7,000 posts were lost. We did not get back to the figure of 39,000 until mid-2020. The point I am trying to make is that the moratoriums do not just save money for the HSE, which is their stated intention for a short period, the long-term effect of a moratorium for professions like nursing and midwifery is that it can take nearly a decade to recover.

If I might just add in respect of home helps, when the HSE introduced the moratorium, it did not exempt home helps. It is forcing the privatisation of that service. What my colleague from SIPTU says is that the HSE will not provide additional headcount to allow recruitment for the 600,000 hours that were announced. There is something seriously wrong if a private provider with inferior conditions of employment can recruit and the HSE says it cannot get people.

It is the same for public health nurses. My colleague, Mr. Dunne, is a director of public health nursing. The service in the community is provided by public health nurses, community general nurses, and home helps. If we are missing any of those, we are not providing a whole service. Recruitment into public health nursing is down significantly over the past three years. Again, public health nurses were not exempt during the last moratorium.