Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Government keeps making the same mistakes. It tried to bring home and recruit 500 nurses. It successfully recruited 90 and 40 left after a year. There is something appallingly wrong if we cannot get staff. The Minister cannot assure me the HSE will have the staff because they do not want to work in the health service. I salute the many who do. I walked into a GP's office in Clonmel last Monday week and she told me that after 18 years she could not wait to get out of the hospital because of the intolerable conditions and shortage of staff. I could point to example after example such as Cashel hospital, which is pristine. This year €600 million has been added to a budget that is expanding to billions but there is waste and people do not want to work. I met representatives of the IMO this morning. It cannot get doctors or consultants. They are voting with their feet. Our brightest and best have been educated here. They had the passion and vision to go into all types of medicine. They do not want to leave but they are forced to leave because of the unorganised bedlam that is allowed to continue. The Government keeps throwing money at it and keeps paying architects to design new buildings and they are lying empty. In the Minister's county and all over the country, pristine buildings are unoccupied. They are unoccupied and unstaffed and it is costing a fortune to heat them and keep the lights on with no staff. It is a failed policy. There has to be a system that people want to work in. There has to be a system that doctors and nurses want to give their dedication to and serve our people in but the Government is not making the conditions right for them.

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