David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I move:

That Dáil Éireann:

notes with concern that: — 12,624 people were admitted to hospital without a bed and left on a trolley or elsewhere in ward corners and corridors in November, the worst November on record for overcrowding according to the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO); and

— on 29th November, the INMO identified that 660 patients were admitted without a bed, one of the single worst days on record;

further notes with concern:

— the findings of the INMO on the emigration intentions of student nurses and midwives which found that 65 per cent of nursing graduates are strongly considering emigrating, and 33 per cent are considering leaving the major cities in Ireland due to the cost of living; and

— that in 2021, 62 per cent of first-time registrants with the Nursing and Midwifery Board were non-European Union workers, which highlights the lack of supply and poor retention of Irish trained graduates; recognises: — that without adequate recruitment and retention of nurses and other healthcare professionals our health system cannot function, and conditions will continue to deteriorate for both patients and staff;

— that it is extremely difficult to encourage Irish-trained and qualified nurses, or other healthcare professionals such as general practitioners (GPs), back to Ireland, while there is such a chronic shortage of affordable housing to rent or buy; and

— the widely held belief amongst the public that the current Minister for Health, Stephen Donnelly TD, is incapable of addressing the crisis in our health service and has, along with the wider Government, been making the situation worse;

condemns:

— the failure of the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, Simon Harris TD, to ensure adequate numbers of training and course places for healthcare professionals;

— the failure of the Minister for Health, Stephen Donnelly TD, to address work related retention issues and training capacity challenges; and

— the failure of the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Darragh O'Brien TD, for refusing to recognise the housing emergency, its impact on the health service and to take urgent action to increase the availability of affordable accommodation; and calls on the Government to: — commit to urgently review its current housing plan and increase its targets for social and affordable housing to rent or buy, alongside putting one month's rent back into private renters' pockets and ban rent increases for the next three years;

— offer a job guarantee to healthcare graduates;

— urgently identify, examine and consider all potential mechanisms to address the cost-of-living barriers to recruitment and retention of key workers, especially in urban areas; and

— immediately engage with general practice to ensure GPs are supported to take more pressure off hospitals and emergency departments, especially by expanding out-of-hours services, and engage with other primary care professions, such as pharmacies, to ensure late night options are in place across the State.

Eight long years since the incoming Taoiseach was Minister for Health, the health service is facing crises the scale of which we have not witnessed before: 1 million patients on waiting lists; a record 12,500 patients on trolleys in November 2022; and a health service that can only recruit half the staff it needs this year. These crises did not creep up on us or come out of nowhere. They are not a sudden once-in-a-century pandemic nor were they caused by that pandemic. These crises are years in the making and are the direct consequence of two decades of failed Government policy. They were caused by mismanagement of the health service, the housing market and the higher education sector by successive Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Governments. It did not put the capacity in when it should have, it did not build enough homes when it could have and now it is failing to train anywhere near enough graduates to safely staff our health service. I am afraid patients are now paying the price for that. The consequence of these failures is another generation of talented young graduates who have been trained for export. When is this Government ever going to learn?

The first problem is that we are not training and recruiting enough healthcare professionals and the Minister for Health has accepted this many times. The Government has finally accepted this belatedly but looking at the Minister's amendment to this motion, which brags of a paltry 135 additional nursing places this year, it is clear that he lacks the ambition and vision needed to tackle this problem.

The second issue is retention and this applies right across our health services. There are many reasons so many healthcare workers leave the health service and even our country. There is a severe lack of capacity, they do not have the tools or staff to do the job properly, hospitals are overcrowded and working conditions are appalling. We see it with children's disability network teams and in many other areas where we simply cannot recruit the staff that are needed to provide children and patients with the services they need.

However, there is now a much more fundamental problem driving our graduates abroad and that is the housing crisis. According to a survey by the INMO, two in every three nursing and midwifery graduates are considering emigration. One third directly named the cost of living and the housing crisis as reasons they are considering changing to a workplace closer to their family home. There are major reasons many healthcare workers of all ages across professions are considering emigration. When he became the Minister for Health, the Tánaiste vowed to bring our doctors and nurses home and he failed. When Deputy Harris became Minister for Health, he promised to make sure that every nursing graduate got a job and he failed. When the current Minister for Health assumed office, he made the same hollow commitments, which have not been followed through with the action we need. When the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage assumed office, he promised ambitious targets for affordable homes, yet not a single affordable home to buy was delivered in 2020 or 2021, with only a trickle expected this year.

It is not only new graduates who are being driven to emigrate by the housing crisis.

One nurse living in County Louth wrote to me, stating:

I'm 33. My husband is 34. We both live in the garage of my parents' house. We're considering emigrating next year. Australia has so much more has so much more to offer - better working conditions as a nurse, better opportunities to save and a better lifestyle. It is a shame, as Ireland is our home, but we will never make it on to the property ladder by staying here.

The housing crisis is also stopping students from even completing their courses. In the words of one former student nurse:

I was studying and training to be a nurse in Dublin. The rent was extortionate for a bed in someone's shed. I was waking up at 4.30 in the morning to commute to Dublin to be there for 7.30 for my shift. I finished at 8.30 p.m. and arrived home at midnight to get up again at 4.30 the following morning. I dropped out due to sheer exhaustion. If the rent was cheaper or if there was some form of affordable housing, I may have continued my studies and I may have qualified.

The Government's failure to tackle the housing and the cost-of-living crisis is forcing young nurses and midwives to emigrate, stopping others from coming home and preventing others from even qualifying in the first place. If that is not a disaster or an emergency, I am not sure what is.

Sinn Féin has a plan to fix the housing crisis and to deliver more affordable homes. We have a plan to cut rents and freeze them. We would increase targets for social and affordable housing to rent and buy. We would put one month's rent back into renters' pockets and ban rent increases for the next three years. We also have a plan to fix the health service. We would increase the number of healthcare training places and give a job guarantee to healthcare graduates, including those who go abroad, so we can entice them back. We would invest in hospital equipment. We need more beds and more surgical theatre capacity. We must give those in our healthcare sector the tools to do the job. We would address the cost-of-living barriers to the recruitment and retention of key workers, especially in urban areas, in sectors like housing, transport, energy and childcare. Sinn Féin would invest in healthcare capacity to give workers the tools to do the job and give patients the dignity and the health service they deserve.

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