Stephen Donnelly says it is ‘not acceptable’ that nurses face delays getting pay rises

During a speech at the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation’s annual conference this morning, he said he was aware of the frustration of nurses who may not get a pay rise that is backdated to January, until June or July.

He said the situation had a “similar feel” to the length of time it took for frontline healthcare workers to get the special Covid pandemic bonus of up to €1,000.

“However, whilst it is welcome I am aware of the frustrations in the health service, very understandable frustrations, in how long it is taking to be paid,” he said.

“So yes, it will be back paid, which is fine, but that’s of little comfort to people who are waiting for the payment particularly when you see it being paid in other parts of the public service.

“The delay is not acceptable. I had a similar frustration to the delay in giving everyone the €1,000 through Covid, which turned what was a positive gesture into a source of frustration for people who quite frankly had to wait too long for it. And this has a similar feel to it.”

He said it was encouraging to see that public servants will get a pay increase of over 10pc over the next two and a half years under the new public service agreement.

Mr Donnelly committed to take the issue up directly with the HSE and tell them that everything that can be done must be done to expediate the payments.

The minister denied politicians’ claim that a review into emergency services in the mid-west announced yesterday was a shameful election stunt.

“I’m not interested in what some election candidate is saying,” he said. “What I’m interested in is what patients are saying, what their families are saying and what our frontline healthcare professionals are saying.”

He said the number of patients on trolleys is falling across the country.

“We’re seeing more and more hospitals now, like Waterford, like Tullamore, get down to either no patients on trolleys or very, very few patients on trolleys and our aim is to achieve that in all hospitals,” he said.

“In spite of a big reduction in the number of patients on trolleys so far this year, Limerick in particular is standing out as not only not achieving a reduction but it has had a very big increase in the number of patients on trolleys, and really it’s because of that increase over the last number of months that I have kicked off a review of urgent and emergency care in the mid-west region.”

He said uniquely of all the regions, it only has one emergency department.

When Aoife Johnston died, he said it was not standard practice in UHL to roster senior decisionmakers into the emergency departments in the evenings and the weekends. “It should have been,” he said.

Mr Donnelly said more investment has gone into Limerick Hospital than any other hospital in the country in recent years. He said it has had the biggest increase in staff. It has 1,200 more staff than four years ago.

“Unfortunately, while other hospitals have managed to use investment to reduce the trolley numbers, it’s going the wrong way in Limerick,” he said.

He said it is time for HIQA to ask is there a case for a second emergency department in the region.

When asked if he would put a special sick pay scheme in place for frontline workers with Long Covid, he said: “we need to do right” by our healthcare workers.

He said he is aware that a recruitment “pause” in the health service is a concern, but he is doing everything he can to get the challenges it is causing resolved.

Mr Donnelly said nearly 3,200 additional nurses and midwives were employed across the country in the past year. However, he said even with this growth the recruitment pause has impacted implementation of the Framework for Safe Staffing.

“However, securing more than 400 additional nursing posts through agency conversion this year will get us much closer to where we need to be,” he added.

Meanwhile, he said we cannot have large tented encampments popping up in our cities.

“It’s not something that can go on, and the government is quite rightly moving to address that,” he said.