Pauline Tully (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The recruitment embargo put in place by the CEO of the HSE has been triggered directly by this Government's mismanagement of the health budget. Job offers have been retracted and recruitment has been frozen for thousands of essential front-line posts. More than 7,000 critical posts have been scrapped. As we head into an extremely difficult winter, the Government has decided to underfund the health service. Basically, this will mean there are no additional experienced nurses and healthcare assistants, in spite of hundreds of patients on trolleys and hundreds of thousands on waiting lists. There will be no additional psychologists for CAMHS, despite the fact the number of children on waiting lists has doubled under this Government's watch. There will be no additional home care workers, in spite of the fact that 5,000 older people are waiting for home support. There will be no additional therapists for specialist discharge teams, no additional radiographers or clerical staff for radiology departments, despite the fact there are a quarter of a million people on diagnostic waiting lists, and no additional porters, hygienists or cleaners to keep patients safe from infection. Further investment is required in enhanced community care reforms to deliver early intervention and integrated care for older people, chronic disease management and local rehabilitation services. All of these are urgently needed to take pressure off our hospitals and deliver the right care in the right place at the right time, but these will now not take place.

The recruitment freeze has caused extreme reputational damage to this health service. What about all the Irish nurses working abroad who want to come home? What about all the healthcare professions who are graduating this year and hoping to start their careers here at home in Ireland? What the Government has told him essentially is to leave and go to Australia, Canada, Britain and New Zealand. What the Government has told these and other countries is that they can come right ahead and take our essential workers. What a message to send at a time of great crisis in our health service. It is obvious, from the budget, that the Government is throwing in the towel on health. It has ensured that tens of thousands of patients and staff will be condemned to extreme risks in hospitals this winter. Fine Gael promised to end the scandal of patients on trolleys 16 years ago but under successive governments with Fine Gael at the helm, it has only got worse. The Government must reverse its disastrous decision to underfund the health service and lift the recruitment embargo. If it is incapable of doing this, it should stand aside for a government that will.

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