Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

The Government may have accepted the report but the people on the front line have not. I do not know if the Minister has looked at the details of the Public Service Pay Commission that is dealing with nurses. Nurses in certain specialties will get an extra €7 a week. One would not buy two pints of beer with that pay increase. It is an absolute insult to them and it is only certain sections of the nursing staff that will get it.

The Minister said it is not open to the Government to breach the terms of the public service pay agreement without serious consequences. I put it to him that the Government's failure to open proper pay negotiations with the nurses is having serious consequences. As I stated, nurses are balloting for a series of 24 hour stoppages. When nurses walk out of hospitals will the Minister congratulate them, as he just congratulated Google workers, on taking action to change the system that is crippling the health service, preventing recruitment and driving young workers, out of desperation, to walk off the job they care about? Will he congratulate them when they take action because he is worried about the serious consequences of breaching a pay agreement? Strikes are also serious consequences and the lives of those involved will be seriously damaged.

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