Nurses are held in huge esteem in this Chamber and right across the country. It is worth asking why that is. The reality is that it is because they perform their duties with compassion, dedication and commitment to public service and to the communities in which they live. We all hold them in huge esteem. The problem is that, far too often, esteem and respect are not followed through in policy. I am concerned at the situation we are facing in Cork and others are facing in other regions where this new control on spending could potentially - I want clarity on this - lead to a freeze on recruitment. There are some 5,000 vacant midwifery posts across the State, hundreds of them likely in Cork and Kerry. We have just had the busiest April for some time when measured by people on trolleys. The waiting lists in Cork are absolutely exploding. This is at a time when Irish nurses right across the world are desperate to return home to work in Irish hospitals to do what they can to assist in what is, in my view, still a crisis in our healthcare system. How can it be anything other when we have exploding waiting lists, growing numbers of people on trolleys, and appointments, elective surgeries and diagnostics constantly being postponed and cancelled? I find it difficult to understand why we could even be contemplating a potential freeze on recruitment for clinically front-facing posts, which could include nurses. That needs clarity. The other people I am thinking of today who serve our communities are our paramedics. I urge the Government to engage with them, to meet them without preconditions to ensure that they get what they have been waiting for for five or six years, which is recognition for the job they actually do in this modern day.

Sentiment score: 0.08