David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Last Friday, the CEO of the HSE directed a severe escalation in the recruitment embargo caused by this Government’s mismanagement of the health budget. Job offers were withdrawn and recruitment has been halted for thousands of vital front-line posts. More than 7,000 essential posts have now been scrapped. The disastrous consequences of this Government's decision to deliberately underfund the health services for next year become clearer by the day and by the week. In his memo last week, the HSE CEO, Bernard Gloster, wrote, "I know this will create difficulties for many of you", as the health service "faces an enormous increase in demand". On budget week, he wrote to the Minister for Health outlining that "circa three quarters of the deficit cannot be achieved by way of reduction without significant and punitive risks to the public".

Yesterday, the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation recorded 595 patients on hospital trolleys. As we head into what we all want to avoid but what I think is unavoidable, namely, an extremely difficult winter in our health services, the Government in that context has decided to deliberately underfund the health service. In plain terms, it means no more experienced nurses and healthcare assistants can be hired, despite hundreds of patients on trolleys and hundreds of thousands of people on waiting lists. It means no more psychologists for child and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS, even though the number of children on waiting lists has doubled under the Government’s watch. It means no more home care workers, even though 5,000 older people are waiting for home support; no more therapists for specialist discharge teams; and no more radiographers or clerical staff for radiology departments, despite nearly 250,000 people waiting for a diagnostic scan. It means no more porters, hygienists or cleaners to keep patients safe from infections, and no more investment in community care to deliver early intervention, chronic disease management or local rehabilitation services. The Minister, Deputy Harris, knows, as I do, that without all those supports, people will not get the right care in the right place at the right time. That is not to mention the extreme reputational damage this recruitment freeze has caused for the health service. The only exemptions here are approved consultant posts, a small number of doctor training posts and nurses and midwives who are graduating this year.

What about all the Irish nurses who are working abroad, whom we want to come home and some of whom want to come home? What about all the other healthcare professionals who are graduating this year? What message has the Government sent them? I will tell the Minister. It has told them to leave, if they are thinking about it; and that if they have left, we do not want them and they can stay where they are. It has said to Australia, Canada, Britain and New Zealand to come and take our healthcare graduates. What message does that send at a time of great crisis in the health service, when hundreds of patients are on hospital trolleys every single day and hundreds of thousands of people cannot get access to basic care? The Minister promised that children with scoliosis would be seen within four months - another broken promise from the Minister and this Government - but they have been left without any clarity on when they will get the life-changing care they deserve. It was quite obvious from the budget that the Government has thrown in the towel on health. It has condemned tens of thousands of patients and staff to extreme risk in hospitals this winter.

Will the Government wake up, see sense and undo its disastrous decision to underfund the health service? Will it immediately revise the health budget for the rest of this year and 2024? Will it reverse the recruitment embargo and the scrapping of essential front-line posts that will do enormous damage to patients?

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