Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Senator knows this but it is important to put on the record that the main service the nursing and midwifery board provides is to the public and to patients. It is not there to service the interests of nurses and midwives per se, nor is it a trade union or staff association. It exists to protect patients and ensure fitness to practise. It hears complaints, such as those against the nurses shown up in the "Prime Time Investigates" documentary on Áras Attracta. It does, of course, provide services to nurses, such as the documents they may need to travel and work overseas, and it is intended to bring in competency assurance as well but the main reason it is there is to protect the public and patients. It is not a nursing advocacy organisation. It is also generally well established that professionals should bear the cost of their own regulation. The fee nurses pay is higher than that paid by therapists but medical and surgical interns, many of whom earn less than nurses, pay more, at €310. Pharmaceutical assistants, who also earn less than nurses, pay over €200. The fee nurses are being asked to pay is very much in the middle range. Nonetheless, there has been a big increase and it has almost doubled in two years. It is legitimate for nurses to ask why this increase has taken place, how the money is being spent and whether it will keep going up. The nurses have reasonable concerns in this matter and I hope all the questions can be answered to their satisfaction and to that of the board through the current process. The HSE does have options and it is probably best for me not to speculate on which of the three or four options, or which combination of them, is intended but contingency planning is under way. Having said that, it is my expectation and hope that this is resolved as everybody wants it to be resolved without patients being endangered in any way.