Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The crisis in our health system is getting worse. This morning, we learned that 99% of members of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation in Beaumont Hospital in Dublin have voted for industrial action. This is not a dispute about pay; it is a dispute about patient safety. Nursing staff levels have been decimated on the Government's watch. Nurses would tell the Tánaiste, if she cared to listen, that it is impossible to provide a safe level of care to patients. Those are not my words; they are the words of the professionals. They tell us that staff are close to burnout, that their workloads are impossible and that they have been highlighting serious concerns with management for some time. However, nurse numbers continue to fall and the situation continues to deteriorate.

Beaumont Hospital is short 45 nurses in the medical and surgical divisions alone. Today, 22 patients in that hospital are on trolleys. Here in Dublin, my local hospital, the Mater Misericordiae University Hospital, is 100 nurses short. Today, it has 29 people on trolleys. In fact, as we speak, the Mater is on the verge of triggering the full-capacity protocol. That is how bad things are. Why is this? The answer is quite simple. Today there are 4,500 fewer nurses in the health service than when the Government took office five years ago. This is the result of the Government's health policy and its refusal to invest and reform. It seems the Government prefers to give tax breaks to the rich than invest in more nurses, more home-help hours or more nursing home beds. The Teflon Minister for Health, Deputy Leo Varadkar, has abandoned the Government's big idea and now the Government has no plan and, worse still, it has no clue.

My question is straightforward. Given the scale of the crisis, does the Tánaiste still have confidence in the Minister for Health? How can the Government tell staff and patients at Beaumont Hospital and beyond that it will ensure patient safety?

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