Marc MacSharry (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Wallace, to the House. I thank the Cathaoirleach for ruling in order my motion to ask the Government to address urgently the inequitable level of reduction in undergraduate nursing places in St. Angela's College. Undergraduate nursing education throughout the country has been cut by 16.5%. This has been especially savage in the north west at St. Angela's College in Sligo, the only constituent college of the National University of Ireland north of a line from Dublin to Galway. The cuts there are in excess of 31% in undergraduate intake, 25% on the general programme and an outrageous 40% on the intellectual disability programme. In the Dublin area the cut has been just 7% on average. Cuts in Trinity College and UCD have been 6.5% and 6.4%, respectively.

One would question the rationale for cutting nursing education at all and especially at a time when the health service here is going through the most major reform ever experienced. Nurses still remain the only 24-hour service providers within the system and are predominantly the face of the front line. In recent times we have needed to recruit from across the world to ensure we have had sufficient nurses at the coalface. We are now complicating this shortage further by not educating our own nurses for the future. One would question why nursing was chosen to suffer cuts while other health care professional numbers have not been affected and other undergraduate discipline numbers remain unchanged.

This further compounds the urban-rural divide given that the greatest cut in student nursing places will occur at St. Angela's in Sligo. The national average cut is 16.5% and it will be between 31% and 32% in St. Angela's, which is double the national average. It defies logic when one considers that Trinity College and UCD, among the biggest colleges in Ireland, are to experience the smallest level of cuts. The impact on student numbers will be such that the overall viability and continuance of those colleges will not be remotely affected. However, at St. Angela's College it will be very significant to have such a large cut in its numbers.

A reduction of 40% on the intellectual disability programme is simply outrageous. I am informed that the Health Service Executive director of nursing services took this decision which was then approved by the Minister, Deputy Harney. I have been reliably informed that the director of nursing took this decision on the basis of the need for more nursing in Dublin. Are more students from Dublin interested in pursuing nursing as a career? Is it from viewing hospitals in Dublin that the director of nursing services perceives that it requires more places? Are the people of the north west not as entitled as those in any other region to apply to qualify as nurses in the north west as they have consistently done there and then work wherever they choose?

It is worth noting that all the people who have qualified through the intellectual disability programme have secured employment locally through the Cloonamahon facility, Craig House and other regional or local services. This constitutes further discrimination by the HSE against the north west. We have had the ongoing debacle with the proposed removal of cancer services and now we have this. It is a further indication that the HSE as an entity is detached from the will of the people and the needs of the people in regional Ireland. More than 20% of the budget in the State is under the direct control of a third party organisation that does not respond to the direct wishes through elected representatives in the Dáil, Seanad and Government and act appropriately.

I ask the Minister of State to take to the Minister, Deputy Harney, and other members of the Government the ardent wish of the people of the north west to be treated equitably and fairly as those in other parts of the country are so that we will not need to take the lion's share of the pain once again. First we had the cancer services and now the discrimination against St. Angela's College where nursing student numbers are to be cut from 65 to 40, whereas the cuts in Trinity College and UCD are minimal and will have minimal effects on the overall viability of the workings of those colleges.

We should consider other revered Government policies such as balanced regional development, the national spatial strategy and taking care of the students of the future. If a person wants to study nursing and there are not sufficient places at St. Angela's College, he or she will need to come to Dublin where the cost of living including rent is higher. As the spatial strategy would aspire to, should we not create more capacity before demand? I believe a region such as mine with St. Angela's College acting as that education centre could take more students. The level of cuts, if any, at St. Angela's College therefore should be substantially less.

I thank the Minister of State for hearing my plea and I hope in earnest that something can be done to reduce the level of savage cuts on the undergraduate nursing places at St. Angela's College. It has experienced the highest percentage cut of the 13 nursing schools with a cut of 31% compared with a national average of 16.5%. However, our biggest universities, Trinity College and UCD, have to take least pain at between 6% and 7%. I ask the Minister of State to take that on board with a view to reducing the level of cuts on St. Angela's College.