Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I propose to take Questions Nos. 8, 20 and 21 together.

I hope the Deputy will accept my bona fides when I say I want to let all sides engage without interference from the Government, Ministers or whatever it may be. What happened yesterday was welcome and I commend the Medical Laboratory Scientists Association, MLSA, on agreeing to suspend the industrial action because it was having a very significant impact on patient services. As I said yesterday in response to the Deputy or his colleague Deputy Boyd Barrett, I know that not a single medical scientist who went on the picket line wanted to be there. They, more than any of us, are acutely aware of the disruption to patients, sometimes for quite urgent care, and the last place they wanted to be was on a picket line. It is noticeable, as several colleagues referenced, that it has been a long time since they felt compelled to take such action. I commend them on suspending the action and going to the Labour Court yesterday. We now know more than we did when we were debating this yesterday morning, and there has been a very positive and constructive development. All sides have agreed to go back to the Workplace Relations Commission, WRC, for three weeks. All issues will be put on the table and all sides represented. They have also agreed that if, as we hope, that three-week process in the WRC is all that will be required and an agreement can be reached that works for all sides, any outstanding issues will revert to the Labour Court and all sides will be bound by that court's decision. It is a very positive move.

Turning to the Deputy's very reasonable question, this issue was identified in 2000. Thereafter, the report was received in early 2001, and through a benchmarking exercise in 2002, the matter went in a different direction. It was further noted, although not acted on, in 2007. I want to see a resolution to this that will work for all sides. Nevertheless, Deputy Naughten made an important contribution yesterday when he made the point that as science, technology, genetics and personalised medicines come more and more to the fore, the role of medical scientists and other scientific grades and groups within the public health system will come more and more to the fore of medicine for patients.

Not only, therefore, do we need a resolution to this issue, which is essentially a pay dispute, we also need an ambitious pathway for medical and laboratory scientists into the future. Dr. Colm Henry, the HSE's chief clinical officer, is instigating a review and looking more broadly at the profession and where it can go. I am pleased that work is being done on advanced practice. Advanced practice nurses and midwives are, effectively, autonomous clinicians. This is one of the most important and radical changes we are seeing in healthcare in Ireland. Ireland is becoming one of the leading countries in this and work is under way looking at advanced health and social care professional practitioners, one category of whom comprises medical scientists. We need to resolve the current situation and then be ambitious about what is possible for the profession.

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