Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Labour Party for bringing forward this very important motion.

If you can get a vet into your yard within an hour or an hour and a half, but if your grandmother goes to an emergency department she might have to wait for 24 hours to see a doctor, that is a bad sign for the health service. We are spending billions of euro on that service, but you can get a vet quicker than you can get a doctor. The money is being spent but it is not hitting the right place. Our lovely young girls and boys who are educated and want to be involved in the healthcare profession are leaving. Every day, I meet mums, dads and grandparents who say their young daughters and sons who wanted to be involved in health care here are in Australia, America or England. They are all around Europe but they are not at home. What is being done to attract them? Nothing. If they came home, they would not get planning permission for nor afford to buy a house. The standards and reimbursement they would get here are far less than those they can get abroad. That is wrong. We should be keeping those people at home.

Early this morning, I wanted to travel to Tralee in Kerry to stand in solidarity with the hard-working and dedicated people from the INMO and other groups who are protesting in Ratass, outside University Hospital Kerry. I decided that it was more important to be here to make my points on their behalf. I say clearly to the people protesting in Tralee today that we are here to stand up for them and speak for them but, unfortunately, the people in government - the Minister and everybody else - are not listening. I say to the people working today in Kenmare Community Hospital, in Listowel, Killarney or Cahirsiveen hospitals or in any of our other local hospitals in Kerry, that I know they are overworked and underpaid but we will continue to fight for them and be their voice.

See this speech in context