Lynn Boylan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I urge my colleagues in the House to support the vote this morning on the Sinn Féin amendment to the motion on biodiversity brought forward by the Green Party. I reiterate the point I made yesterday that supporting farmers to farm sustainably and protect nature is not the same as allowing nature to be traded on markets to facilitate emissions. It is a shame that some of my Green Party colleagues did not understand the difference. Maybe they should listen to their colleagues in the Just Transition Greens group.

Later today, we will discuss the enforcement powers for Covid level 5. The Government must use the time during lockdown to get its house in order. Covid-19 has exposed fundamental weaknesses in our health system. One of them is how the health service plans its workforce and staffs its services. Staffing levels are not based on best practice or evidence-based policy. Instead they are based merely on the idea of what the ward has always had and essentially looking to history to set the staffing levels. The framework on safe staffing is a scientifically tested tool to set staffing levels based on the number of patients and their specific needs. When trialled in Irish hospitals, it cuts costs, particularly agency staffing costs; decreases the length of patient stay; improves patient satisfaction rates and staff morale and well-being; and cuts mortality rates.The tragedy of Covid-19 has touched many families throughout Ireland but for nurses that tragedy is a daily experience. They are on the front lines day in, day out. The trauma of what they go through for all our sakes is difficult to fathom. Yesterday, a nurse from a Dublin hospital, Jennifer, called into "Liveline" and put into words her experience of the Covid ward. She read a poem she had written about the ten minutes that she gives to those losing loved ones in ICU to say their final goodbye. I ask each Member to take a moment to listen to that poem today because we owe it to the nurses to do everything in our capacity to support them in their work. In the words of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, we must take care of them so that they can take care of us.