Pat Gallagher (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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372. To ask the Minister for Health if he will consider extending the contract of nurses due to retire if they are willing to continue working; if he will consider re-engaging any nurse who has already retired if he or she is willing to be re-employed, particularly in the context of current staff shortages in the nursing profession; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [15240/17]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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Last year this Department issued a Circular to the HSE National Director of HR to allow a derogation from public pay policy for mental health nurse retirees to return to work for the HSE beyond the first point of the mental health nurse salary scale and typically at the LSI point of the scales for those who would have retired.

In recent discussions with the INMO and SIPTU nursing unions at the WRC, proposals were agreed whereby other nurses and midwives who return to work, following retirement, would be entitled to return at the incremental point they were on when they left the system. With regard to nursing and midwifery personnel who retired at a higher grade (CNM2, ADON etc), if they return to work at the grade occupied at the time of retirement, they would be paid at the incremental point of the scale they were on at time of retirement. However, if returning at a lower grade (e.g. Staff Nurse), they would be remunerated at the maximum point of this lower grade. The INMO is currently balloting on these proposals.