Robbie Gallagher (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Gabhaim buíochas leis an Chathaoirleach. Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit go dtí an Teach seo inniu. The Minister of State is very welcome to the House and I thank her for her attendance. I will address the issue of the closure of the Sacred Heart unit in Dungarvan Community Hospital. The unit provides vital rehabilitation for patients suffering as a result of strokes or other serious accidents. It is regrettable the decision was taken on a Friday of a bank holiday weekend. It was underhanded and mean. It placed the patients and families affected in a very stressful situation of not knowing where they were going to go and when they were going to go. The reason given was the HSE is finding it difficult to recruit nursing staff. Surely the Minister of State will agree somebody in the HSE should have seen this particular problem coming down the tracks so it would not have had to take such a knee-jerk decision on a Friday of a bank holiday weekend. It is very clear the terms and conditions of nurses are not good enough. My colleague, Senator Swanick, with whom I will share my time, with the permission of the Acting Chairman, will go into more detail on that. It is having a serious effect on the health service. A bigger effort needs to be made to try to give better terms and conditions to nurses. We are educating our nurses and as soon as they are qualified they are going abroad because there are better terms and conditions on offer to them.

I will ask two questions before I let my colleague in. The HSE has made a commitment to reopen this particular unit when it recruits sufficient staff to do so. Is there a timeframe for that? I have spoken to a number of people who were thinking about coming home from the UK to take up a post in Ireland but they have to go through a procedure of applying for a PIN. We understand they could be waiting six months in order to get that PIN, which seems crazy. Will the Minister of State look into that?