John Brassil (Kerry, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I support the motion tabled by my colleague, Deputy Donnelly. I welcome the representatives of the INMO and the PNA to the Gallery. It is unfortunate that the nurses felt it necessary to approve strike action in order to get a hearing. I support them fully in their calls.

We have a recruitment and retention crisis, and unless we do something about pay and conditions, we will not solve it. In December I submitted a parliamentary question on recruitment of psychiatric nurses. I asked how many contracts were awarded in 2018, broken down between permanent and temporary. I was informed that 176 contracts were awarded in 2018, of which 56, which is 33%, were temporary contracts. How are we going to solve a crisis by offering temporary contracts to a third of those we employ? If we want to hold onto people, we need to offer them training, education, decent pay and conditions, and permanency. The same figure could be applied to the INMO temporary contracts.

We need to deal with this crisis realistically. Pay is an extremely important issue and conditions are equally important. However, providing people with permanency so that they can plan their lives is just as important. I ask the Minister to include that in his negotiations in solving this issue, which we have to solve. We need to pay our nurses the money they deserve. We also need to give them the terms, recognition and contracts they also deserve.

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