Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

"Signed up, bought in and invested", that is certainly not what individual health care workers are saying. With regard to the plan my question was specifically about the status of negotiations. The Minister is saying that he does not think negotiations will be required, that there will be no changes in work practices and if there are no changes in work practices and everything will be as it was we can expect there to be 500 odd people still on trolleys plus whatever number for the winter surge. Is that what the Minister is saying because if there is to be a change in work practice that should be negotiated? If there is not to be a change in work practice it will be the same as before and nothing changes and everything gets steadily worse in the way it has continued to do.

I asked about negotiations, not about whether there is some good feeling towards having a plan, late as it was. There probably is good feeling towards having a plan. Have the changes in work practices that the Minister outlined when spoke about the new clinics and the potential changes in rosters been agreed with the staff? The emergency department task force is not an industrial relations forum. We were told repeatedly that it is not but every time the representatives of nurses and other healthcare workers tried to raise industrial relations issues at it we were told there is an industrial relations forum. That is not a briefing, that is engagement, which fuels industrial relations. I am curious to know, if there have been any negotiations, what is their status and if not, I can only expect that there will be no change in work practices.

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