Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

I do not need to wax lyrical about the role of migrant nurses in our health service, and I do not need to wax lyrical about the role of migrant workers more generally in our health service. We all know their role is critical and that, without their contribution, some say the service would collapse within a matter of days. I suspect it would actually collapse within a matter of hours. Irish society owes these workers a real debt of gratitude, and like all workers, they deserve to be treated with courtesy and respect.

According to reports in the Irish Independenttoday, migrant nurses may have been treated with anything but courtesy and respect at one of our largest hospitals, namely, Cork University Hospital, CUH. One nurse with more than a decade's experience in nursing claimed that a manager said to a group of nurses there:

You only move here to steal our benefits; you get pregnant as soon as you land, have three or four babies and take everything from us; you smell, don’t wash your hands after using the toilet and spread Covid in our country; you kill Irish patients.

Another nurse from Pakistan told the newspaper:

The very first day of adaptation, when we were expecting welcoming words from the coordinator, a senior member of management entered the room and started saying horrible things [...] No welcome, absolutely no respect. There was a lot of racism. This person was always screaming and shouting at us. It was such a stressful environment to work in.

That one nurse would make such an allegation would be a matter of concern to me. That two nurses would make such allegations would only heighten my concerns. However, that 29 nurses signed a petition addressed to the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation outlining what the Irish Independentdescribed as similar allegations should lead to alarm bells ringing here.

I understand that there are cases before the Workplace Relations Commission, with the complainants supported, by the way, by both Migrant Nurses Ireland and the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation. However, I am going to move on from the particular to the general. A representative of Migrant Nurses Ireland told the newspaper:

Our concern is that this is not an isolated case in the Irish healthcare system. The most concerning aspect is that, despite previous complaints, the same manager continued the excessive hate speech and racist attitude by abusing their position of authority.

I am concerned that a worker facing abuse of this kind is automatically placed in a very vulnerable position by the State's visa policy. Most migrant nurses move to Ireland through the atypical working scheme. A visa only allows a person to live legally in this country for a period of six months. After this, a nurse receives a personal identification number, PIN, which they take to immigration to secure a work permit that lasts for a year. How vulnerable does this make a worker who has been trained by a manager who might be racist, and who in effect has the power not only to fail them but to force them to go home? How vulnerable does this make other such workers who witnessed such treatment and who tremble at the idea of speaking out for fear that they will be forced to go home? Does the Minister of State accept that this is potentially an extremely important case at CUH, and does he also accept that the State's visa policy may well be a contributory factor in this whole sorry situation?

See this speech in context