David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

We have a growing population and demand in healthcare has increased. When we talked a number of times last year about the deficit that existed in healthcare, the Minister and officials in the Department of Health and the HSE cited two reasons for that, namely, health inflation and increases in demand for services, and the Minister rightly said we were not going to turn away patients. Healthcare demand is what it is, and we have to have the staff and the capacity to deal with that demand. That is the backdrop here. Liam Doran, the former head of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, INMO, said this week, and he is right, that health service recruitment embargoes never work and cause reputational damage to the HSE.

I have received a number of letters from people over recent weeks. One was from a young pharmacist from my constituency of Waterford, a graduate of a top university who had applied for a role in the health service about which she was extremely enthusiastic and was told she cannot be hired because of the recruitment embargo. Likewise, a student paramedic, who was originally a nurse and went on to train as a paramedic, has been also refused a post because of the recruitment embargo, and when I come back in, I will cite more examples. The embargo does not work and is having an impact on front-line healthcare services.

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