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

I want to send my support to junior doctors in Northern Ireland who are once again taking strike action this month. Their pay has, in effect, been cut by 30% over the past 15 years. The junior doctors strike is about pay, but it is about more than pay. It is about defence of the National Health Service. Low pay is combining with understaffing and underfunding to force many skilled staff to emigrate or leave the profession. I hope the upcoming UK general election can become a key focal point for industrial and political action, linking strike action by junior doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers with community campaigns to defend GP and mental health services in a movement to save the National Health Service.

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