Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

On page 66 of A Programme for a Partnership Government, the Government promises to implement new procedures to ensure the more efficient and timely recruitment of nurses but we now have a major problem with their recruitment and retention. I am not surprised. First-time nurses must be paid the same as other university graduates. The conditions that our nurses work under are unacceptable, with overcrowding and poor support from management. Nurses are rightly angry. Tomorrow, nurses from the Schull, Castletownbere, Bandon, Clonakilty, Dunmanway, Kinsale and Skibbereen community hospitals will strike outside their hospitals with their fellow nurses in Bantry General Hospital, fighting for their rights and the rights of the patients for whom they care. There are five senior and junior health Ministers. Can the Government sit down and do what it has to do to find an immediate solution to nurses' pay and conditions before it forces these nurses out on strike again tomorrow?

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