Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

As we speak, nurses, midwives, health professionals and healthcare workers are protesting outside the HSE headquarters. They are also protesting in Cork. Many of them are balloting for industrial action. Last night in my area I organised a protest about the health service. It was packed to the rafters with healthcare workers from St. Michael's Hospital, Loughlinstown hospital and the local community. All were outraged by and extremely worried about the unsafe staffing levels across the health service and angered that the Government claimed it had lifted the recruitment embargo in the health service while actually imposing staff quotas, which are in effect an embargo, based on something called the pay and numbers strategy. The Government has suppressed thousands of posts in the health service, leading to a situation where patient safety is being compromised in our hospitals and across our health service. Is the Government going to scrap the pay and numbers strategy and get safe staffing levels back into our hospitals?

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