Eamon Scanlon (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am glad to have the opportunity to speak on this issue and I thank Deputy O'Reilly for bringing forward the motion. At some stage, each of us has had reason to attend hospital, be it for ourselves or our families. One can see that nurses are working in very stressful situations but they carry out their work professionally. There is no question about that and they should be rewarded accordingly. The number of assaults that take place, particularly late at night and in the early morning, in accident and emergency facilities is absolutely outrageous. The job is stressful enough without having to worry about who is coming in the door or who could assault you. It is very wrong. More security should be made available in accident and emergency departments, particularly at weekends, because that is where the problem lies.

The current shortage of nurses in mental health and general nursing services will only get worse and services will only deteriorate further unless the Public Service Pay Commission delivers for nurses. The reality is that on current nursing salaries, the HSE cannot compete with health employers in UK, Canada , Australia and elsewhere when it comes to the recruitment of nurses and nurse graduates. We just cannot compete. The culture of emigration among our nurse graduates will not be broken while salaries, allowances and support for professional development remain significantly better in other countries than they are for nurses in the Irish health system. The incentive for Irish nurses to take up better-paid and more attractive posts abroad is growing, not decreasing. There are currently 25,000 nursing vacancies in the UK's NHS, with experts predicting a significant further push to recruit Irish nursing graduates post Brexit. Unless there are improvements in nurses' pay which close the gap between salaries here and those available to nurses emigrating to the UK, the Irish health service will lose another generation of nursing graduates. The absolute necessity for the Public Service Pay Commission to comprehensively address nurses' pay is obvious when we consider the yawning gap in pay and conditions between Ireland and the UK. In the UK, the professional qualifications of a nurse are recognised, with the first point on the nurse's pay scale being above the maximum of the health care assistant scale. UK nursing packages include €8,000 relocation costs, educational opportunities, low-cost accommodation and a 37.5-hour week. In the UK, the nurse is recruited at the same level as therapy grades, for example, physiotherapist, occupational therapist or podiatrist. In Ireland, the nurse is treated as a lesser professional than the therapy grades.

In its report, the Public Sector Pay Commission said that some of the submissions it received recognised that increasing pay will not address the issue of recruitment and retention, particularly in the health sector, and that, when compared with employment in the private sector or in other countries, a range of other relevant factors - such as a pressurised work environment and the provision of continued professional development - which impact on whether nurses remain in Ireland must be addressed as soon as possible.

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