Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE)
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9. To ask the Minister for Health if he is aware that an organisation (details supplied) states that many funded nursing vacancies arising from staff retiring, leaving or going on maternity leave are remaining unfilled due to the recruitment freeze and that this happening when there is unprecedented demand on our health services, meaning that various departments and community services are short-staffed; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [25758/24]

Gino Kenny (Dublin Mid West, People Before Profit Alliance)
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I will be happy to get the Minister's answer on this question so I will skip my 30-second introduction.

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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I want to make sure I am addressing the correct question.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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It is Deputy Paul Murphy's question on nursing vacancies.

Gino Kenny (Dublin Mid West, People Before Profit Alliance)
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I am taking his question as well, just to make things more complicated.

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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The number of nurses in our health service has been increasing dramatically in the lifetime of this Government. Since January 2020, right across the health service we have increased the number by almost 29,000 whole-time equivalents. It really has been a huge increase. Deputy Murphy asked specifically about nurses and midwifery. In the lifetime of this Government, the nursing and midwifery workforce has grown by nearly 10,000. This has been much needed and they are doing huge work. A 10,000-person increase in nursing and midwifery staff is very significant.

When it comes to the embargo, it is so frustrating. We funded the HSE last year to increase the workforce by 6,000, a record number. The HSE did not stop at 6,000; it kept going to increase the number to 8,000. We now have more than 2,000 extra staff in the HSE for whom there is no funding for their salaries. Obviously, we are still paying their salaries, but there was no funding allocated for their salaries so action needed to be taken. It may come as a surprise to many that, in spite of the embargo which we want to resolve and move away from as quickly as we can, actually, the number of nurses in the HSE this year has increased by about 500. For certain posts where somebody might have retired or resigned, a hospital might be told post cannot be filled for now, although we know they are using agency workers at a level they have never used it before either, so a lot of agency staff are being brought in for those posts.

In spite of that, there are 500 more nurses working in the HSE today then there were on 1 January. I will come back on this in my response.

Gino Kenny (Dublin Mid West, People Before Profit Alliance)
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I thank the Minister. In certain areas, there are pressures on staff. Probably one good example is public health nurses in CHO 7. In CHO 7 in Clondalkin and Lucan, there are no public health nurses whatsoever. This is very worrying. I got a response to a parliamentary question on why public health nurses could not be recruited and the reason was that new public health nurses just could not be recruited into that area. That is extremely worrying. If you do not have public health nurses looking after young children or elderly people, this will have a really bad effect on public health. I have spoken to the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, about this and it is one area that has to be addressed and that gap closed off for public health nurses, not only in CHO 7 but in other areas as well.

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Deputy. I fully agree and we had a debate with his colleague, Deputy Smith, recently on exactly this. There are parts of the country where they have found it very difficult to recruit or replace public health nurses. It is not something that can be allowed to stand. Public health nurses are doing essential work with infants and with older people. We cannot have babies for whom the developmental checks are being missed. We cannot have mums and dads who cannot avail of the supports for their babies that the public health nursing teams provide. I do not disagree with the Deputy that there are parts of the country and of Dublin where it has been very difficult. The point we made last time was that this was the inverse care law at play. Parts of the population who need the most help are actually getting less than other parts of the population. It is something I have asked the HSE to look at as a matter of urgency and to look to redeploy or bring in cover if necessary. We simply cannot have a situation where developmental checks, for example, are being missed.