Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I commend the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, INMO, for coming before the Joint Committee on Health today. The representatives outlined the stark reality of what work is like for their nurses. I will read a short passage for the House:

The reality of the ED Nurses daily/nightly experience is described as deep frustration and anger at the fact that they feel unable to care for their patient's fundamental needs in the way they would wish and are trained to do. The physical environment where patients are crammed together within touching distance of each other, with little or no privacy, poor hygiene facilities are inadequate to maintain patient dignity or privacy. This is a dehumanising and degrading experience for patients, their relatives and those that care for them is, and is now in its second decade.

That sums up what is happening in our hospital emergency departments and the conditions in which nurses have to work and in which patients are treated.

I refer to the previous speaker who talked about home help. The fact is Fianna Fáil went through this country and took hours from people who were vulnerable and elderly. A 99 year old man in Westport was told that he could not even have two hours' home help a week under Fianna Fáil. That was the reality of it. When it was supposed to stand up to the troika and protect our heath services, it offered them up as a sacrifice as it bankrupted the country. I will not take lectures from Fianna Fáil on what is happening within the home help service now.