Maire Devine (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Last week I attended a briefing with representatives of the Psychiatric Nurses Association, the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation and SIPTU in Leinster House regarding the lack of implementation of what was agreed with the Health Service Executive, HSE, on nursing internships. This agreement was reneged on by the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Paschal Donohoe, and it is leaving the 2011 intake of nurses, who trained until 2015, with less pay than the graduates we will see this September and October.

These people are mentoring, teaching and passing on experience to less-experienced nurses who are just about to qualify. One can contrast this with the massive spending on agency staff day in and day out in the HSE. We spend €2.2 million on agency staff per week while the cost of trying to keep the nurses here is just over €4 million. Nevertheless, the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform is refusing to meet the trade union representatives. It is hypocritical in the extreme to appeal to nurses to come home and have a better career when they will have no such thing. They will have less pay as there are better salaries, terms and conditions abroad. What kind of message does this send out when nurses are in such short supply?

I e-mailed the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, last Thursday and offered to facilitate a meeting between union officials and his Department in an attempt to resolve this issue. There was no response. I also note there was no response to an e-mail sent by the unions. The result was that hundreds of union members were forced to take to the streets yesterday in a first show of dissent, which has the capacity to develop into further industrial action. We currently have bus drivers on picket lines and gardaí look like they will be next. Do we want nurses outside hospital doors as well when there is a crisis within the health care system? I appeal to the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, to sit down with unions and resolve the issue.