Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank Sinn Féin for bringing this motion to the House. I also thank the People Before Profit Members who brought a Bill before us on 2 December last. On both occasions, and particularly today, the Government speeches utterly failed to deal with the proposals that were presented. I cannot imagine how one could disagree with the motion that is before us today. What is the problem with publishing the Collins review immediately, as is proposed? The motion also proposes that the March agreement be reinstated while the Covid crisis lasts. I am not sure what the problem is with that. I understand that the Collins review, part of which was leaked, makes the same recommendation. How could one disagree with the proposal to advance the second review urgently? The motion further proposes that the second review be expanded to ascertain the extent to which students performing their work are doing extra work. How could one possible disagree with that? If the Minister, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, disagrees with it, I cannot understand how the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, would not take a different view given the gender of the people we are talking about, a factor with which we are very familiar.

The Minister talked once again today, as he did in the speech he gave on the previous occasion, about the exciting and attractive career that is nursing. He used his time to talk about that but he did not address at all the despair, despondence and disgust felt by nurses in our hospitals. The message from the Government from day one of the Covid crisis was that we were all in this together. I welcomed that message. Indeed, the Government did well in rolling out supports for businesses and unemployed people. That gave the message that we were all in it together and it gave a sense of solidarity. That has gone completely. It went in the way that the Government dealt with the nursing homes and direct provision facilities. We knew then that we were no longer in it together and that some were more important than others.

That has really been brought into focus this week and last with the news that the salary of the new Secretary General of the Department of Health, which is currently held as an interim role, will be increased by €81,000, as referred to by other speakers. Really and truly, what kind of message is that to give out when we are all in this together? The nurses certainly are being treated utterly differently. This week, we learned that GPs are going to be paid a set fee for rolling out the vaccines. Interestingly, they will be paid more than pharmacists for doing so. That is a reflection of the market. I understood we were changing all of that in terms of the market, learning from the Covid crisis and learning how important society is. I understood there would be transformative change. There has been no transformative change.

In the case of the nurses, particularly the student nurses, and how they have been treated, they have put forward very basic requests. They are an essential part of the health service, as are all the other nurses and doctors. So too are the cleaners and porters. However, we have seen from the vaccines roll-out that some healthcare workers are treated differently. We have seen family members of doctors, in one instance, getting the vaccine before anybody else. That particular doctor apologised and that is welcome, but I am not sure why he is apologising. He made a very considered decision on the night in question in the absence of information from the Government. I am not sure of the nature of that apology.

The figures are astounding in terms of people on waiting lists. Galway is a disaster zone. I want to put that on the record. In 2017, two theatres were leaking. One was re-established and the other was not, and here we are in 2021. The figures for orthopaedics are nothing short of shocking. People are waiting one year, two years, three years or four years to get a first appointment, not to mention surgery. All of that was known to the Minister because he was in opposition at the time and he was fully familiar with the figures. He knows the nurses went out on strike in 2019. He knows we had one of the worst performances in Europe in terms of capacity for beds and services. We knew all of that. The epidemic, which became a pandemic, came on top of that inadequate service.

I am really tired of the speeches telling us that this or that has been done. They are the most basic things that would have to be done in a pandemic. We are looking for transformative action. Today, however, we a are simply looking for a recognition of what the student nurses have done on behalf of all of us. I was one of those who stood up and clapped for our health service staff. I have said publicly that I am ashamed of that clapping. I did it because I felt they needed a clap but what they really need is action. We do not need any more reflection, as the Labour Party has asked for. We need action.

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