Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the INMO members in the Gallery and I wish to put on record my full support for them and the members of the PNA, who I am absolutely sure do not have a light-minded attitude to the effects their actions will have on patient care and the ongoing crisis in our health service. This is reflected, as has been said already, in the fact that this is only the second time in 100 years that nurses have voted to take industrial action.

I categorically reject the Taoiseach's recent statements that strike action by nurses will cut across spurious and so-called improvements in the numbers on trolleys in emergency departments and on waiting lists. This is yet another attempt to blame overworked, hard-pressed staff for a crisis that stems from - and I address this comment to Fianna Fáil Deputies - decades of underfunding, cutbacks, loss of staff and beds and mismanagement on a gigantic scale.

This action is not just about pay, it is also about the extremely poor working conditions faced by nursing staff as a consequence of the recruitment and retention crisis in our health service. The facts speak for themselves. There are today, according to the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, 2,662 fewer nurses in the public health system than in 2007. This must be set against the fact of ongoing increased demand due to demographic and other factors. There was a 40% increase in vacancies in psychiatric nursing positions from November 2017 to September 2018. Everyone agrees that there is a need for more nursing staff and a much higher rate of retention of trained, qualified nurses. Part of the solution is to resolve the issues of low pay and the lack of parity between nurses and allied health professionals. The starting salary of a staff nurse or midwife is €28,768, compared with that of an allied health professional at €35,319. Neither of these can be considered good pay, especially given the training and qualifications involved, but there is a difference of €6,551, falling to €4,400 after 16 weeks' employment. Nurses and midwives also work a longer, 39-hour week.

There is a reality that Government needs to accept. Despite the threats of a withdrawal of the general pay increases, along with increases to address lower pay for new entrants and their loss of increments, 95% of nurses voted for strike action. The Government cannot ignore this. These strikes will go ahead. At some point the Government must change its stance and enter meaningful negotiations. As has been said, negotiations started yesterday.

I would like to know how meaningful they were. I will be contacting the INMO and the PNA to ask them. The Government should accept the nurses' claim for parity and agree a process as to how it will be achieved in a reasonable timeframe. There is a clause in the public service agreement which allowed for a review of recruitment and retention which would allow for not just talks but a solution to the issues in this dispute without collapsing the general agreement.

I find it quite repulsive to listen to some of the debate on the airwaves and in the media. Fine Gael Deputies who have accepted a €7,358 increase since 1 January 2017 under the restoration of pay and the unwinding of the financial emergency measures in the public interest, FEMPI, and general secretaries of unions who received the same sort of increase can come out and attack nurses for taking this action after going through all the industrial relations processes they could possibly go through. This is the last action workers can take if they know they are not being listened to. This Private Member's motion will be passed and rather than simply ignore it as just another lost vote, as the Government did with the Sinn Féin motion last year, it should take seriously the views of the majority in this House and of the public and patients and act accordingly and resolve the situation.

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