Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am glad to get the opportunity to talk about our nurses, who do such a wonderful job. Everyone will talk about his or her own county but the nurses do an especially good job in my county, Kerry. I met the nurses last Tuesday. It was absolutely lashing in Killarney, Tralee, Kenmare, Caherciveen and Dingle, yet the nurses were determined. One could see the determination in their faces and demeanour. As Deputy Michael Collins stated, it was not just about them but also about the patients they take care of minute by minute every day.

We need to recognise that nurses have to be properly paid. Considering the amount of training they do and the amount of activity their rosters require of them every week, they certainly need to be paid properly. I know what they do because they gave great care to my father and other members of my family who were sick at various times, just as they gave it to everyone else in their wards.

It was horrible to hear of a young nurse crying because she did not have enough assistance to get an elderly man into his bed. She had to ask the man's wife to give her a hand. The wife could see her crying because she felt inadequate because she could not get enough help to deal with the man. The safety of our nurses is paramount.

There is certainly a staffing issue. Half the community hospital in Kenmare is not yet open because it cannot be staffed. In the hospitals that are open, we just do not have enough staff, including front-line nurses. This needs to be dealt with by the Government. We have been talking about it here for long enough. Deputies on all sides have been reminding the Government about it but it is not doing enough about it.

The safety of our nurses in the wards is important. Some nights ago, I met a nurse whose mother was also a nurse. Her three sisters are nurses. She is wearing a neck brace because she got hurt while working in the hospital. She will never again work. That cannot be allowed. I ask the Minister of State, Deputy Catherine Byrne, to take this to heart and do something about it. It is happening quite a lot in recent times and must be stopped. There must be security within the hospitals as well as outside so this will never happen again.

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