Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I often hear Deputies in the Chamber declare they have an interest in a matter that is under discussion. I declare my interest now which is that I very proudly represented nurses for a very long time. Usually when Deputies are declaring an interest it is because they own a pub but I am very proud of my work record and to have represented nurses.

I was very cross yesterday to hear the Leader of the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte’s party claim credit for the nursing degree. It took a great deal for me not to burst out laughing. We know well the biggest strike this State has ever seen in terms of the number involved and the duration was in 1999 and that it led to the nursing degree and the professionalisation of the work of nurses.

It was not gifted to them by the Fianna Fáil Party. To suggest that it was is quite frankly outrageous. The nurses themselves know exactly where it came from.

As has been pointed out previously, this campaign will not go away. These nurses are strong and they are determined. When I was a kid my granny told me, long ever before I joined the world of work, that if I worked for free, I would never be idle. The Government is asking these students to work for free. It is asking them to go into Covid wards to do the kind of work most of us would not be able to do or would not have the courage to do. In her speech, the Minister of State said we should be proud of the standards of nursing education. Of course we are. We do not need a lecture from her. We are damn proud of our nurses. However, when the Government gives them a round of applause and a pat on the back, that is hardly fair. Would the Minister of State like her kids to work all week for a pat on the back and a round of applause? That is not what I want for my daughter. I want something better.

The Minister of State also said the supernumerary status is critical for learning in complex environments. She is bang on. It absolutely is but these people are not supernumerary. Supernumerary means one is there but not counted as part of the roster. The people in question are actually working and are not supernumerary. They are actually going into Covid wards and working. Due to the state of our health service and its understaffing, they have no choice and have to work. They are effectively on the roster and part of the staffing complement.

Before I came into the Chamber I received this from a student nurse:

I have made sacrifices for my placement. I have chosen to feed my children before myself on 13-hour shifts, paid two rents, walked to and from hospital in the pitch black. I pay for the privilege of propping up an understaffed system.

In an ideal world, they would be only doing all of the learning to which the Minister of State referred but, in truth, they are working. The Minister of State said that our four-year degree level programme is one of the main reasons Irish nurses and midwives are in great demand throughout the world. She is dead right because they are of an absolutely high standard. Many of them are driven abroad by Government policy, however. Successive Governments have made our health service a deeply unattractive place for them to work. Many of them came home to sign up to Be on call for Ireland but they have been treated with nothing but disrespect.

We need these people. If we ever imagined for a moment that we did not need them, the past few months have shown us just how important this core group of workers is. They are the single largest group of workers in the health service. They happen to be predominantly women. It is not an accident that this predominantly female workforce, time and again, find itself at the back of the queue. That is simply not fair.

I urge the Minister to withdraw her amendment to the motion and to support the motion.

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