James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Psychiatric Nurses Association has given notice that it will escalate its industrial dispute by implementing an overtime ban on 31 January and 1, 5 and 6 February, with possible strike action on 12, 13 and 14 February. That did not happen overnight and it was not taken lightly by the Psychiatric Nurses Association or its 6,000 members. They do not want to be on strike. They want to provide the high quality of care to patients that they are trained to give, but it is impossible for them to deliver that high quality of care due to overcrowding in hospitals, the crisis in their pay and conditions and the cost of living.

Nurses are the lowest paid core salary graduates of any health profession. The staff shortages in mental health nursing are very real. There is a recruitment and retention crisis in mental health. There is overcrowding in mental health facilities. It is clear the staff shortages are the main obstacle to the implementation of the Government policy on mental health as set out in A Vision for Change. Again and again throughout the country we hear that young people or adults who need mental health services cannot obtain them, it is because the staff - nurses, psychologists, psychiatrists or allied health professionals - are not available.

Mental health nurses are voting with their feet - they are resigning or changing their speciality. There was a 40% increase in vacancies in psychiatric nursing positions between November 2017 and September 2018, which is a phenomenal increase in such a short period. They are under intolerable stress, there is burnout and isolation and their own mental health has been put under serious strain. We have also seen a significant increase in the level of assaults on psychiatric nurses, with 11 in 2015 and 149 reported in the first ten months of 2017, which is a 15-fold increase in just a couple of years.

This year, due to the confidence and supply agreement, an additional €55 million was provided for mental health services but the same amount was effectively spent on agency staff last year. There is also the Brexit context. I was glad to hear the common travel agreement has been reaffirmed by the Government but it is clear the UK Government intends to restrict seriously the number of workers who can come from the Continent to work in the UK. The UK is suffering its own crisis in mental health staffing, in particular in nursing because continental nurses who were going to the UK are no longer going there. The UK has started a recruitment campaign to target nurses and, no doubt, with the common travel agreement being reaffirmed, which is to be welcomed, Irish nurses will be the target.

It is not that nurses are unreasonable. They are well known for expanding their practice and abilities. They were some of the first in the world to adopt nurse prescribing and took on prescribing for X-rays, for example. Nurses are reasonable and they are asking reasonable questions. It is time the Minister met them and gave them a reasonable response.

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