Colm Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I join colleagues in extending my sympathies on the death of Peter Mathews to his wife Susan and to his family. Peter was a person who held strong views but he was always prepared to listen to the views of others as well. He made a substantial contribution to the debate on economic development. As my colleague, Senator O'Donnell, noted, he was someone who flagged the cards far earlier than many, when we should have been far more aware. He will be a big loss. I extend my sympathies to his wife and family.

I wish to raise the issue of the Central Statistics Office figures out today. They show that unemployment is down again this month. The figure is now down to 6.6% from 15.1% back in 2012. This shows a strong trend in recent months in that unemployment is now coming down at a faster rate, and that is welcome. I imagine that in the not too distant future we will see the unemployment figure down below 6%.

This is good news but it means we need to start planning for the future. One of the areas of the workforce where we have a shortage of people is nursing. I got some figures last week on the increases in people working in the HSE. I have criticised one increase but I welcome another increase, that is, the increase in the number of care assistants. The number has gone up by more than 2,000 in the past two years. Many of those care assistants are ambitious to move on in their careers. We should examine how to afford them the opportunity to go on to the next step and qualify as nurses.We should be encouraging that now, because they already have a huge bank of experience that they can use. We need to make sure the necessary incentives are given to them to move on to that next step. I saw today that there is going to be a huge shortage of workers in the health care area across Europe over the next ten to 15 years. We need to start planning and to prepare for it because we have a change in demographics which I have referred to repeatedly in the House. Now is the time to start planning, not when the disaster arises. That is something that we should bring to the attention of the Minister. We should have the Minister to the House in the not too distant future to talk about future planning in our health service.