Maire Devine (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will be really brief. I am happy to outline briefly my broad support for Senator Swanick's amendment. We have a serious problem attracting health professionals, and I am talking on behalf of my nursing colleagues. There are thousands of vacancies in that area and among other healthcare staff workers. We are trying to bridge the gap of expertise and mentoring of new recruits that come in. We have lost a lot of that in our time. This measure does enough to safeguard the employer and the employee and to ensure fairness and choice. It is about choice. I do not want to see it as mandatory. Some of us are having our day on our Zimmer frames earlier than we expected because we have been worked so hard. We are all living longer and subsequently we are promoting lifelong learning of which this is part.

I want to raise a couple of concerns. I know of a situation where nurses in particular were employed post-retirement age. I presume these are temporary contracts, but there are problems with temporary contracts. They require a clarification on pension contributions in that these people are already pensioners. There is also the issue that senior staff, or a senior nurse in the instance I am thinking about, are paid in terms of the seniority they have reached in their careers, yet they will not be the senior staff responsible in a ward or health service delivery. That is someone who is paid significantly less