Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Speaking at the Labour Party conference this weekend, Phil Ni Sheaghdha said the health service is excellent but only for those who can access it and pointed to the trolley crisis, which is now a permanent trolley crisis. A key concern and issue in dealing with this is how the housing crisis is impacting the ability to recruit nurses, midwives, doctors and other medical staff because they have seen so much of their salaries going on rent. Are the Taoiseach, the HSE and the Department of Health considering enabling hospitals to provide dedicated housing for healthcare staff or support for accessing housing, particularly for healthcare staff recruited from abroad?

I recently raised the point with the Taoiseach about the need for regulation of counsellors. We need to remove barriers to entry for counselling, psychology and educational psychology. This has been raised with us by a number of people engaged in these programmes.

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