Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is very clear that there is a crisis in our health service. Everyone is aware of that. The crisis in the health service is reflected in the issue of retaining our nursing staff. Everything is connected. There is a crisis in housing; people cannot afford houses. Nurses cannot afford to pay rent in this city or in many other parts of the country. There is a crisis in childcare, which means that young nurses with families cannot get childcare, particularly given the long rotas they have to work. There is also an issue with pay and conditions in a stressed work environment. These things all feed into the overall problem. The Government must step in and take bold action to try and resolve these issues.

All previous speakers have stated that pay is one of the first issues we have to tackle. That is true but we also have to tackle the issue of professional development and training. Many of the nurses who qualify in this country go abroad because there are greater opportunities to develop and access training in different countries.

We also have to look at the whole issue of creating a better working environment within the hospital system. The shortages of staff, not just of nurses but of consultants and others, as well as a trolley crisis, all lead into a working environment which people find stressed and pressurised and they do not want to enter it. The Government has to take real action in regard to all of these issues. It is interesting because recruitment and retention is something that very clearly has a big effect on the professions and the health service but, as I said, it also impacts on all the other things around it, such as the housing a crisis. If a nurse is lucky enough to get a position in the city of Dublin, for example, he or she cannot afford to rent a house to stay here. All of those things have an impact.

My third-oldest child, Clare, has said since she was in primary school that she wants to be a nurse. She is doing her junior certificate in the coming weeks and she still has that ambition. I encourage that because it is a magnificent profession and nurses can go anywhere in the world and get work. They can also contribute so much to their community, to society and to everyone around them. We all want to see more people trained and working in the caring professions, yet the State treats them so badly. What does that reflect? It is not a reflection of the people, rather it is a reflection of an establishment which does not seem to care. That has to change.

I appeal to the Minister of State, Deputy Finian McGrath, in particular, given, as my colleague said, that he is propping up the Fine Gael Government. It is time to give them a bit of a kicking and tell them they need to step up to the mark in this regard. That is what he needs to do. I know he has always promoted the issue of quality health care and the position he now holds is all about that. However, at the end of the day, he is propping up the Government that is allowing this situation to continue and he needs to reflect on that point.

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