I begin by sending my solidarity to those in the National Ambulance Service who are engaged in strike action today. I know they would much rather be at work. Today's action should and could have been averted but the Government failed to address the issues that caused them to strike. At this late hour, I call on the Government to intervene and engage with the workers, and ensure that ambulance staff receive the respect and safe staffing that they deserve. Nurses are the backbone of our health service. While the direct role is often to deliver medical care, the functions that they undertake span many more tasks than that. Nurses are medical professionals. They are the person a patient will trust and often confide in, the provider of emotional support to the ill, the comforting voice in a maternity ward, and the shoulder to cry on for those consumed by loss. Given the immense role they play across the health service, it is appropriate that there is a day to celebrate them today. The work they do and the hours our nurses put in comes with a cost to them personally. A 2026 member survey by the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation noted high levels of stress, burnout and concern about working conditions for nurses. Some 39% of respondents reported that their work negatively impacted their psychological well-being, and 24% of respondents reported visiting the GP due to work-related stress over the preceding 12 months. These are stark statistics. Beyond this staggering personal toll, there is a danger that we will continue to lose our highly trained nurses to other jurisdictions. The INMO survey results are damning in this regard. Some 61% of respondents have considered leaving their work area in the month prior to completing the survey. Some 80% of those reported unsafe staffing levels in their areas. It is clear from these results that staffing levels and workload pressures remain a huge stress on our nurses. We need to establish in legislation safe staffing policies to protect both our nurses and patients. How can we expect to attract people to a sector if we cannot guarantee their safety, we cannot guarantee their leave days will be available when they need them, and we cannot guarantee that they will have manageable and safe nurse-patient ratios? I briefly mention the nurses who work in my hospital, University Hospital Limerick, UHL, and commend them. For many years, they have been doing their already challenging job in some of the most difficult conditions faced by healthcare workers in any medical facility in the State. They are among the best heroes of our health service. Over the last number of years, the overcrowding in UHL has got worse for thousands of patients treated on trolleys all over the hospital. This severe risk to patient safety has often been mitigated by the professionalism and dedication of our nurses, and I thank them from the bottom of my heart. While people become frustrated waiting in the emergency department and despondent from being treated in the corridor, the feedback we receive regularly is that once you get in the door, the care you receive at UHL is pretty good. I salute our nurses and midwives for the wonderful work they do. I commend the INMO for its attention to the needs of its members, and I call on the Government to ensure that our nurses are provided with safer and more secure working conditions.

Sentiment score: 0.11