Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am delighted to introduce this motion on nurses' and midwives' pay and the recruitment and retention crisis. I welcome representatives of nurses and midwives, as well as their unions, particularly the INMO, who are in the Visitors Gallery.

Tá na haltraí agus na cnáimhsigh tar éis go leor a dhéanamh ar son na seirbhíse sláinte ach anuas air sin déanann siad cuid mhór don tír ar fad. Is iadsan na daoine atá ar an líne tosaigh agus is orthu atá sé cúram sábhailte a chur ar fáil nuair nach bhfuil an maoiniú, an fhoireann nó an infrastruchtúr ann. Leis an rún seo inniu, tá bealach ann chun an scéal seo a chur ina cheart maidir le pá agus coinniólllacha oibre chun tacú lenár gcuid altraí agus cnáimhseach.

Nurses and midwives not only make a significant contribution to the health service, they continue to make a similar contribution to society. There are over 36,000 WTE nurses and midwives across the State. I doubt that there is a Deputy or a person in the State who does not know one personally or who is not related to a nurse or midwife. They are diligent, hardworking and caring professionals who are passionate about delivering the best health care possible. They are also workers. This is not a vocation for them.

The measure of nurses and midwives is that, in the midst of a crisis across the health service, anyone who raises a concern or a problem will always say that the nurses could not have done more. People will say that even though they were left on a trolley for 24 hours or they sat in pain in the emergency department, that the staff, especially the nurses, offered exceptional care in a calm and compassionate way. This is in stark contrast to the very conditions in which they work. Nurses and midwives are on the front line, carrying the burden of trying to maintain a safe level of care within a reality of reduced services, decreasing staff numbers and increased demand. They work longer hours per week compared with their counterparts in other countries - 1.5 hours longer than nurses in Canada and Britain and one hour longer than nurses in Australia - and for less pay. Added to this, nursing and midwifery are high-risk occupations in terms of aggression and physical assault with an average of 34 physical assaults on nurses and midwives every month.

In recent years, the situation for nurses has worsened as a result of the deterioration in working conditions and pay issues. Their jobs have become characterised by extremely high-stress working environments, poor staffing levels associated with unsatisfactory working conditions and a poorly controlled working environment. It is hard to describe the damage the recruitment moratorium, introduced in the health service two years before all other areas of the public sector, had on nursing and midwifery. It has had a near crippling impact. In December 2007, there were 39,006 WTE nurses and midwives in the HSE. At the end of December 2017, that number stood at just 36,777. That is the cold truth of it. Nursing and midwife numbers are down significantly at a time when both the need for and use of health services are increasing.

All the while, the work and dedication of nurses has been taken for granted . Successive Governments have failed to understand or address their situation or the reasonable requests they have made for better working conditions, better facilities, more supports, increased training opportunities and for the issue of pay to be addressed. If something is not done to increase nursing and midwifery numbers and address the issues which they and their unions have outlined as being a barrier to entry to the professions and a cause for exit, the crisis in the health service will only escalate. The professions of nursing and midwifery are at a crossroads. Not addressing the fundamental problems identified will have a calamitous impact on the health service.

The motion calls for the introduction of recruitment and retention measures based on realistic proposals and which prioritise pay. It also calls on the Government to work with unions to draw up a roadmap on how full pay equality will be achieved for nurses and midwives, with an implementation plan to deliver pay equality within a short timeframe. Nursing is not a vocation. Much and all as our nurses love their work, they do not do it just because they love it. They have mortgages to pay, car loans to be serviced and kids to be fed. It is time we addressed the real issues of recruitment and retention and which central to both is pay.

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