Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for his forthright answer. Indeed it is at the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform that this query was aimed. I am rather shocked by the response that has been drafted for the Minister of State by the Department.One must ask whether people at the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform understand anything about industrial relations. An agreement was reached between the HSE, the Department of Health and the nursing unions and somebody at the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform decided to see whether it would work for the current graduates and if it did to apply it retrospectively to the people who stayed in this country. I met a number of nurses in Buswell's Hotel, some of whom had returned as mature students to take their nursing qualification. By virtue of the fact they had children and were married, they could not emigrate like the remainder of their colleagues but they will go at the first opportunity. They will do so because somebody at the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform decided to see how the incentive would work with the graduates of 2016 and if it worked to perhaps apply it to the poor unfortunates who stayed in the country. It really is not good enough. A deal is a deal and the incremental credit should immediately be restored to the graduates of 2011 to 2015. If there are only 1,500 of them, that is all there is, so it will not cost a fortune. When the Minister of State goes back to the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, will he ask him to have a look at this in the interests of fairness if nothing else? We must be fair in how we deal with employees.