asked the Minister for Local Government and Public Health if his attention has been drawn to a statement, made by the Assistant Manager for Dublin City and County, at a meeting of the Grangegorman Mental Hospital Committee, that the salaries offered to nurses (£42 a year) were not attractive; that alongside an advertisement in a Dublin newspaper recently offering positions to nurses at this salary, there appeared an advertisement from an English mental hospital offering salaries of £70 a year to probationer nurses; and if so, what action, if any, he proposes to take to make the Irish standard of salaries and pensions offered to nurses at least as attractive as the English standard.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Nurses' Salaries and Pensions.
I am aware of the statement referred to by the Deputy. The figure of £42 a year mentioned is the initial rate of salary paid to a female on recruitment as an attendant in the Grangegorman District Mental Hospital. The salary scale applicable is £42 a year, increasing by £6 a year to £60 a year. When qualified in mental nursing, which qualification must be obtained within four years of the date of original appointment, a female mental nurse receives a salary of £91 8s. 0d. a year. In addition to salary there are emoluments of apartments, full rations, fuel, light, laundry and clothing. Emergency bonus is also paid. Long service pay also is granted at the following rates:—£12 a year after ten years' service, £22 a year after 15 years' service, £32 a year after 20 years' service.
I am satisfied that the rates of remuneration of female nursing staff in district mental hospitals in this country are not unreasonable.
The Parliamentary Secretary has not answered the question at all. He has given a review of a situation which is well known and he has given particulars which are well known to every member of this House and of which details can be got at any time by any member of the House in the Library. I asked him if he was aware that alongside an advertisement in a Dublin newspaper recently offering positions to nurses at £42 a year there appeared an advertisement from an English hospital offering much higher salaries? I asked him what action he proposes to take to bring the nurses' salaries here into line with the salaries paid there in order to make the situation here at least as attractive to Irish girls as similar posts in England? That is my question. I have just repeated it.
The Deputy evidently did not hear the last phrase of the reply. "I am satisfied that the rates of remuneration of female nursing staff in district mental hospitals in this country are not unreasonable."
I ask the Parliamentary Secretary is he going to make the post here as attractive as similar situations in English and Scotch institutions. The commissioner says that he cannot get nurses, because they are getting offers of better employment in England, and more power to them for going there if they do. I am asking the Parliamentary Secretary will he take any action to bring the Irish standards up to the standards in operation in England and Scotland.