Duncan Smith (Dublin Fingal, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I will pick up on the Minister's comments on recruitment and retention and the efforts he said that the Department and the HSE are making. We are hearing from the unions that one of the key reasons we are struggling in this country not only to recruit but to retain staff is housing and the cost of it. I am aware that this is outside the Minister's remit but this is a fundamental reason and I know that the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation has done some research among its own members on this. Graduate nurses in Dublin and Cork are paying upwards of 77% of their income on rent. That is totally unsustainable and someone cannot live on that. Directors of midwifery stated that in exit interviews carried out by the INMO, 59% of young nurses who are leaving are going abroad for better pay and conditions and cheaper and more available living standards. Unless we resolve the housing crisis, this issue will prove fundamental to also resolving the recruitment and retention crisis.

I do not believe we would be having statements in the Dáil this week, which I am very thankful for, if the motion on safe staffing had not been tabled by Senator Hoey of the Labour Party in the Seanad a number of weeks ago. It is vitally important that we are having another opportunity to debate this issue.

The one issue I would like to focus - and I would like to the Minister to response to the letter writer in SIPTU, and the health spokespeople - is the serious physical assault scheme and the disparities within it. SIPTU health division wrote to the Minister on 14 March and copied in the Chair of the Joint Committee on Health and Senator Hoey in respect of removing the inequity within the treatment of the serious physical assault scheme to support grades within our health service.

The support grades are porters, receptionists, cleaners, healthcare assistants, paramedics and household staff, all of whom are front-line staff and have been victim to assaults, be they physical, sexual or otherwise. At the moment, given how the scheme is set out, they are not entitled to the same benefits under the scheme as other officer grades. This is unsustainable. The HSE has responded to the SIPTU health division to confirm that they are supportive of its claim, which was lodged in October 2021, but it would require sanction from the Department of Health to address the concerns raised. This claim has remained within the Department ever since. It is unacceptable that support staff who suffer such assaults should be subject to the lesser terms of support from their employer than other grades within the same service. Where two staff members may be victims of the same assault, one may qualify for greater benefits under the same scheme than the other. That is not equitable and has to change. I imploring the Minister to address this issue. We could talk about many different aspects of the health service but this is the one issue on which I would very much like him to come back to me in writing. It has been going on for far too long. The inequity has to change and it cannot continue to languish within the Department. The results of this inequity is that the support workers who are subject to serious physical assault in the workplace are afforded only 25% of the terms that can be provided to another grade even, as I have said, if both are assaulted in the same incident.

The delay by the Department in removing this tiered system of benefits that is available to healthcare workers continues on a daily, weekly and monthly basis to treat support staff as if they were of less value than other grades of staff. We are discussing safe staffing and equality within our health service.

We could talk for hours or days about it but we need to fix this scheme and remove the inequity in it. That is what I want to leave the Minister with today. Could he please respond to the SIPTU health division, let the health spokespersons know the position and end the inequity in the scheme?

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