Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Shortall for raising this matter, which I know to be of interest to many within the House.

The issue, as the Deputy described, relates to the campaign by the INMO and other nursing unions, including the Psychiatric Nurses Association of Ireland and SIPTU nursing unions, aimed at restoring incremental credit for the 36-week clinical placement undertaken in the fourth and final year of their degree programme in respect of former nursing trainees serving in the period 2011-15. The background to this matter is that incremental credit for the 36-week clinical placement undertaken by fourth year student nurses was abolished by the then Government in December 2010 as part of a range of measures aimed at reducing the public service wage bill.

Following consideration of a submission made on behalf of the nursing representative bodies, including INMO, PNAI and SIPTU nursing, as well as the Department of Health and the HSE, my predecessor sanctioned recognition of the 36-week placement as qualifying for incremental credit for students on a placement in 2016 and in future on 19 February this year. The sanction stated that the question of awarding incremental credit for the placement to nurses who graduated between 2011 and 2015 may be reviewed on foot of consideration of whether the sanction granted in respect of 2016 and future graduates resulted in an increase in the retention rates for these graduate nurses. Nurses who undertook the placement in 2016 have recently completed their placements and are only now in the process of becoming registered. Therefore, the extent to which the restoration of the credit will result in an increase in the retention rate of graduate nurses will not become evident in the immediate term.

Notwithstanding this matter, it is the case that officials from my Department and the Department of Health met recently to discuss whether there was scope to accelerate this review process for the restoration of incremental credit to 2011-15 nurses. Furthermore, the Minister for Health has now written to me in on this matter.

Many initiatives are currently under way to improve nursing staff levels throughout the country. The HSE is offering permanent posts to the 2016 degree programme graduates and is offering full-time permanent contracts to those in temporary posts. The HSE launched an international staff nurse recruitment campaign focused on attracting nurses back from the UK to jobs in Ireland last year. There was a particular emphasis on targeting Irish nurses who had left Ireland in recent years and who are keen to return home. The campaign offered them a relocation package of €1,500, nursing registration costs with NMBI and funded postgraduate education. There has now been an increase of 1,163 nurses employed in the public health service, from over 34,000 to a little over 35,500 in the two years to August 2016, numbers having fallen by 4,000 in the previous seven years.

The question of whether there is scope to accelerate the review process for the restoration of incremental credit to 2011-15 graduates is currently being reviewed by my Department in consultation with the Department of Health with a view to bringing the matter to a conclusion at the earliest time.

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