Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is shocking that 7,630 people were on trolleys across the hospital network in September, which was just last month. That figure represented an increase of 17% on the number of people on trolleys in the same month in 2014. As patients and front-line staff face into the winter period, it looks as if this crisis is certainly going to deepen. Front-line practitioners have said that patient safety is being compromised. Hospital staff are working under unacceptable pressure in a health system that is severely under-resourced. The real cause of this is an ever-increasing lack of confidence.

While the budget debate was taking place here on Tuesday, 13 October, nurses at St. Vincent's University Hospital in this city were protesting over the appalling conditions they have to work in and that patients are forced to endure. A severe shortage of nurses is a major contributory factor to the current crisis. Nurses are choosing to go abroad because of poor working conditions and a lack of career prospects at home. A survey of 2,000 students across the six medical schools conducted by NUI Galway found that almost nine out of ten trainee nurses and those who have come through the process plan to leave when they qualify. That is a very worrying fact and we must face up to it. Career opportunities, working conditions and lifestyle were the top three reasons given by those surveyed.

The INMO estimates, and its figure is confirmed by a comparison between the number of nurses in 2007 and at the end of 2014, that more than 4,000 additional nurses are required in order to return the workforce to a realistic level, one that is capable of meeting the needs of our people. Does the Tánaiste accept that the existing recruitment package is not sufficiently incentivised and will not attract the necessary number of nurses needed to service our health system? What will she do, as Tánaiste and leader of the Labour Party in government, to address this very serious matter?

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