Phil Prendergast (Labour)

I wish to appraise the Leader of the fact there is a waiting list for palliative care in County Kildare and that the providing facility is short seven staff. St. John's in Sligo has had to close beds owing to staff shortages. The moratorium is affecting the elderly, the intellectually disabled, and step-down and rehabilitation facilities, to mention a few. The Labour Court has recorded that it is concerned about the standards of care.

An internal HSE report which completed last April by a former director of nursing at St. James's Hospital shows critical shortages of staff in 53 continuing care facilities. She graded the lack of staff as immediate, urgent and necessary. The HSE and the Department of Health and Children did not provide funding for public health nurse training for 120 nurses in September, thereby cutting off the very supply needed to administer care in primary care settings.

The Minister goes on about primary and yet the moratorium is killing front-line services and is having a grave effect. I call on the Minister to come to the House to discuss this report which was commissioned on foot of an independent inquiry showing a staff deficit in all these continuing care facilities. This inaction is a further indictment of a Minister who seems totally out of touch.