Anthony Lawlor (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Ceann Comhairle's office for allowing this topic to be selected and appreciate that the Minister for Health is here to address it.

Just before Christmas, there was a short strike by staff at Naas hospital regarding the number of staff in the hospital. I welcomed the Minister's announcement in February that the recruitment ban on nursing staff was to be lifted. In particular, I was glad to hear that Naas hospital was going to get 37 extra nursing staff as a result of that recruitment. As of Monday, one of those new staff members has been recruited in Naas General Hospital. There are 36 who have not yet been appointed.

The National Recruitment Service, NRS, was established in 2009, when there was a recruitment ban in place across the public sector. One wonders at the purpose of the NRS being established at that time as a centralised means of recruiting health service personnel. A certain number of health service personnel would have been recruited by it over the intervening period on an emergency basis. Since the lifting of the embargo, particularly in respect of front-line staff, I have found it difficult to explain how the Minister could make an announcement in February, yet only one staff member has been allocated so far.

The NRS told me it allowed the staff to be recruited locally. "Alleluia", I thought. I thought Naas General Hospital itself was going to be recruiting but no, that is not the case. The staff are now being recruited in Tullamore, which was the centre for recruitment in the former midland hospital board area. From what I can gather, the staff in Tullamore, who would not have had much experience of recruitment over the last six or seven years, are now being inundated, as the NRS has pushed this out to the various old boards that used to exist.

It is important that we get the staff in Naas hospital as quickly as possible, as is the case for any other staff that have to be allocated. I know there are other issues, and candidates going for interview should have all their appropriate qualifications available to show to recruiters. We are in a crisis situation and it is a different type of crisis from the one in 2009, when we could not recruit staff. Now we can recruit staff.

We are going to be actively recruiting staff in the UK who will come back to work here. We should have one organisation that will do it all and take responsibility for it rather than the haphazard approach that seems to be taken at the moment. As I said earlier, I thought Naas hospital would do the recruiting itself but the recruitment has actually been through the old health board HR offices in Tullamore.

I hope the Minister can give me some assurance that we will have a speedier approach with regard to recruiting staff. This week there was a spike in the number of people on trolleys at Naas hospital and across the whole hospital sector, and hospital staff are under fierce pressure. If I knew that could be alleviated through additional staff being allocated and put in place as quickly as possible, I would appreciate it.

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