Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Are the pictures of our young nurses in Melbourne and Sydney and all around the globe asking the Taoiseach to give them a reason to come home fake news? If he will pardon the pun, are they doctored images? I do not believe that they are. People know that certain nursing staff go abroad for a year but then they come back but the reality now is that we are losing so many of our best and brightest and they are not coming back.

I refer to another fact. There is a strike on today. How is that for a fact? As the Taoiseach acknowledged, procedures have been cancelled. How is that for a fact? Should any of us or our loved ones get sick, every man, woman and child in this land want the best of care for them. All of us know that is only possible if one has the right staff and one will only have the right staff if they are treated with dignity and they are paid and rewarded at an appropriate level. How are those for facts?

What nurses and midwives want is very reasonable. I know all about the industrial relations mechanisms of the State. The Taoiseach does not have to keep repeating that to us as though we are morons. We are all well acquainted with and well versed in all of that. I do not accept that it is satisfactory or acceptable for him to passively sit on the sidelines while this strike is on.

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