Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for raising this important matter. I am, of course, as is the Government, very aware that a strike by nurses and midwives belonging to the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation is taking place today across the country. I profoundly regret and am sorry for the disruption and inconvenience that has been caused to patients. Appointments and operations are often cancelled for one reason or another but for 2,000 operations and 12,000 appointments to be cancelled on one day is without precedent. We will do all we can in the weeks ahead to catch up on the lost work, just as we did when days of work were lost last year on account of the storms and bad weather. I am confident we can catch up on those lost appointments and lost operations over the spring period.

I want to recognise the fact nurses are providing cover in emergency departments, cancer care, maternity units and some other essential areas as well. I have no doubt, nor does anyone in the Government have any doubt, about the strength of feeling on the part of nurses and midwives about their pay and conditions. We have no doubt about their resolve and their willingness to strike again. I have no doubt the public is strongly behind them. We want to resolve this dispute but I believe it can only be resolved within particular parameters, which I outlined yesterday. Any solution has to be affordable to the taxpayer, has to be fair to other public servants and has to be fair and beneficial to patients as well. We are available to engage, as is the normal process, under the auspices of the Workplace Relations Commission or the Labour Court to resolve it.

What do I mean by being affordable to the taxpayer? As the Deputy knows, we ran a small budget surplus last year and hope to run a small budget surplus this year, but that is far from guaranteed, given the uncertainty around Brexit. We are not in a position to borrow hundreds of millions of euro to fund pay increases. I can justify borrowing hundreds of millions of euro for emergency measures to save jobs, if it comes to that in the next couple of weeks. I can justify borrowing that money for one-off capital projects that will be with us for 40 or 50 years, but I think borrowing money and funding pay increases with borrowed money is bad policy. It is the kind of thing that leads to pay cuts in a few years time and I never want us to get back into that position again.

When I say it has to be fair to all public servants, we need to bear in mind we have a pay deal with all public servants and there are also other claims being made that have to be examined. If we do a special deal with one group, it will not be possible to do a special deal with all groups, so any solution has to be done under the umbrella of the agreement and with the involvement of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions.

We also need to be fair to patients. Even in one of the richest countries in the world, and we are one of the richest countries in the world, health budgets are limited. I do not want to be put in a position where we have to divert money that is earmarked for new medicines, new technologies or new treatments to pay increases - I do not think that would be right. We also need the co-operation of unions in making the kind of reforms to the health service that we want to make.

See this speech in context