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

I wish to extend a warm welcome to those who join us for this debate this afternoon. I commend my colleague, Deputy O'Reilly, on her ongoing work and advocacy in respect of this issue and on bringing forward this motion.

In recent weeks, I have travelled across the State and met nurses and their representatives. At each meeting, the story has always been the same. Our nurses are under severe pressure and strain because of the stress-cauldron working conditions within our underfunded and under-resourced health services. The majority of nurses are worn down by the conditions and overcrowding they face in our accident and emergency departments, on our wards and in our clinics. It does not end there. The scandalously poor level of pay does not allow nurses to meet the scandalously high cost of living in the Ireland of 2018.

This is particularly true for new entrants starting on a salary of €28,000. They must work for 12 years before reaching the dizzy heights of the top rate of €44,000. It is fair to say the nursing profession is not alone at a crossroads but potentially will be driven to its knees. Working as a nurse in this State has become such an unattractive proposition for significant numbers of final year nursing students that they have already indicated their intention to leave Ireland and move elsewhere for better pay and conditions. This is not just young or newly-qualified nurses. There is now a trend among highly experienced nurses to leave the health service out of necessity in order to earn better pay abroad.

The situation in our hospitals has been well rehearsed on the floor of the Dáil time out of number. We know it is often difficult to find cover for a nurse who is sick, even on a short-term basis. Under the Fine Gael Government, our nurses must choose between remaining at home with low pay and woeful working conditions or emigrating in search of something better. That is a damning indictment of the Government Front Bench and the position of the Minister for Health. Of course, the latter office was previously occupied by the Taoiseach.

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The unfairness towards, and mistreatment of, nurses is a direct result of the Government's policies. We remember Deputy Enda Kenny promising time and again that Fine Gael would end the hospital trolley scandal. So committed was Fine Gael to this promise that it became the message of a now infamous billboard campaign, its infamy having come about because the promise was not kept. In the time Fine Gael has been in charge, that promise has been smashed to smithereens. The crisis went from bad to worse as the baton was handed from Deputy Enda Kenny to the former Ministers, Senator Reilly and Deputy Varadkar, and now to the current Minister, Deputy Harris, who is in the driving seat.

Nurses are at the front line of our services. I am sure the Minister understands that bad working conditions, overcrowding, low morale and poor levels of pay are interconnected, one follows the other as sure as night follows day. What is particularly infuriating in the case of nurses is that, in my view, this is being done as a strategy to hollow out the public health service and make it more attractive for privatisation. The lives of nurses, their careers and aspirations, the well-being of their families and their ability to plan for the future are all sacrificed on the altar of this bad health policy.

A stand-out theme from recent budgets has been the paltry level of investment of new money into the health services. We need a Government that will invest in the public health service to improve conditions and pay for nurses. Anything less than that is exploitation because not only do nurses get up early, they also go home very late but yet they are locked out of prosperity and opportunity. This must change. The Government has a duty to do right by those who treat our most vulnerable and our sick. The goodwill, talent and professionalism of nurses should never be taken for granted. Nurses deserve fair pay, good conditions and a fair future. As a first step to achieving this, I hope the Minister will not merely support this motion nominally but will grasp the initiatives outlined in it and make it happen.

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