Réada Cronin (Kildare North, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome many aspects of the Bill and am happy to speak on it. Unfortunately, it does not do anything for the appalling conditions under which our non-consultant hospital doctors are working in terms of the gruelling hours and careless, slapdash and sometimes downright insulting institutional approach to their pay and conditions. That they have to take to social media to highlight this is shameful. It is no wonder doctors are emigrating in their droves or planning to do so, as are swathes of medical staff generally. Deputy Mythen has already outlined a 45% increase in the number of work visas Australia has issued to Irish doctors. This is a brain drain of the highest order.

I am also concerned that the Bill fails to deal with the regulation of the home care sector. This failure is bad for the superb people we have working in the sector. It leaves them unprotected when they are working in other people's homes, certainly in the area of intimate care. They have been calling for such regulations, as have HIQA and their unions. We have a major problem when the HSE is spending over €20 million a year on private healthcare providers when it should be providing home care directly and providing decent pay, conditions and pensions for workers. This is vital as we move away from the nursing home care model and facilitate older people to stay in their own homes. We need people to be able to happily choose careers in the home care sector and we need the public to be able to depend on the system for the quality of service and availability of workers. I know people in north Kildare who are desperate for carers and home care. It is no surprise given that 35,000 hours a week are not being provided and more than 4,500 people who have funding are waiting for care while their quality of health and life and their independence deteriorate.

I do not know what obsession the Government has with profiting from and monetising the basic essentials of life such as housing, energy, childcare, healthcare, elder care and now home care. We need public funds to directly benefit the public and to be used for the public benefit. Instead, public funds are having to wrangle their way through middlemen and middle women so they can cut their slice of the profits. This will be a priority for Sinn Féin in government. It really should be a priority for this Bill, too.

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