Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Will the Tánaiste give a commitment today that meaningful engagement will actually take place between the Government, the HSE and the INMO? I do not believe the Lansdowne Road agreement oversight group is going to be the forum for resolving this issue. The Tánaiste outlined what was in the document put forward by the HSE and the Government but it was rejected.

I did not say the industrial action is not victimless. I said the shortage of nurses and midwives is not victimless. That is what is at the root cause of this dispute. Until the Government recognises that, then we are not on the way to resolving this issue. The Minister said 1,200 nurses will be recruited over the course of the year.

Nobody believes that will actually be delivered and that is the problem. The nurses and midwives have heard it all before. There has been a litany of broken promises from three successive Fine Gael Ministers for Health in the past number of years on ending the scandal of people lying on trolleys, cutting hospital waiting lists and bringing in universal health insurance. We are not seeing progress on these issues and nurses are frustrated. The decision to take industrial action is borne out of that frustration. They see no other way of resolving the issue. There has to be meaningful engagement and a genuine commitment on the part of the Government now to deal with the underlying reasons for this industrial dispute.

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