Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I will be brief. At certain times of the year staff shortages are more acute than at other times. That is obvious. Certain periods used to bedevil the last Government, especially the Christmas and new year period, if I remember correctly. Anyway, it was always that winter period. That is always an issue. People have a right to take their holidays. I am not suggesting people have a right to be sick but, when they are sick, they have a right to take time off to recuperate. It is important when nurses are dealing with older and vulnerable people and they become ill that they can take the necessary time off. We do not want them to work in circumstances that are less than ideal. Equally, we do not want people getting infections from one another, as can often happen in this type of setting.

Home help is allocated on an individual basis. It used to be allocated on a block grant basis, but not anymore. Each individual is assessed for the amount of home help he or she needs. Obviously, it is not as much as we would like but nevertheless that is what happens.

I will set out for Deputy Carey what we are doing in respect of recruitment. I have said this so often in the House in respect of different areas. We are now into our second phase of recruiting overseas, in England, in particular, where many of our nurses went. We are there desperately trying to encourage people back. We are offering them a good standard of pay. I suppose the only thing any country can really offer is its environment and living and working conditions, and that is what we are doing.

This year we are targeting new graduates. We have stands in the universities and we are desperately trying to recruit people from that cohort. However, young people who are newly qualified want to work abroad as well. They want the adventure of it and we cannot stop them from doing that. Anyway, we remain hopeful that some of them will stay at home and work within the system. In case some Deputies believe Clare is the only area affected, according to the last information I have there are 40 vacancies for nurses in Cork University Hospital. Yet in the case of anyone who walks in the door looking for a job, we are offering them a contract and a job. Despite this we are finding it remarkably difficult. We are not the only country with this difficulty. The UK has this difficulty and that is why those responsible recruit here. Canada is offering such rewards that we cannot possibly compete, but it is because the services there have shortages too. This is something we all have to deal with, despite having increased the amount of people graduating every year.

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