Denis O'Donovan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I second the amendment to the Order of Business proposed by my colleague, Senator Mooney.

I want to raise the plight of Irish nurses. Most of them will do a four year degree and some do more than five years for certain specialties such as cardiology, oncology and so on. Unfortunately, a substantial portion, probably 35%, of our trained young nurses flee this country because of pay problems and the better facilities abroad. They are being encouraged to go to England, Australia and Canada. If this had happened four years ago, at the start of the Government's term, we would say there were problems and that the economy should recover, but this is the fifth and final year of this Government. I implore the Leader to arrange a special debate in the House and to bring in the Minister for Health to address the particular problem affecting nurses, who are our front-line staff.

I notice today that in the oncology department of Cork University Hospital, the nurses have decided, with the imprimatur of their union, to work to rule. If all the nurses in Ireland, whether in Dublin, Waterford, Cork or Galway, decided to work to rule, the hospitals would come to a standstill. They are actually doing about 33% more in their efforts as nurses to keep hospitals going and look after sick patients.

If this brain drain continues, the damage to our economy will be severe. It costs an average of €120,000 to train a nurse from start to finish as they now do a degree course. If 30% to 35% of our young nurses are leaving the country, and some will never come back, it is a major problem. I am not saying this in a political, knocking way but we should have a debate on the situation, which is getting more and more serious. At the same time, we are employing nurses from the Middle East, India, Pakistan and elsewhere on an agency basis. Some day, the system will collapse and we will see our hospitals totally devoid of Irish nurses, despite the fact that we are currently sending a third or more of them to Canada, America, Australia and England, where they are getting better pay, better facilities and, in many cases, more respect.

It is about time we had a debate on this issue. I compliment Senator Colm Burke, who, on many occasions, has raised issues like this in the House in regard to junior doctors and so on. There is a serious crisis coming down the track in the whole area of the staffing of our hospitals. I particularly want to raise the issue of the nurses because they are the front-line staff on whom we all depend if we end up in hospital.