Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 2 March 2023
103. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett asked the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform if he will outline how he intends to ensure the crucial posts across the public sector are filled, in particular in the cities, given the unaffordability of housing; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [10594/23]
View answerThe Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, INMO, has sanctioned a campaign of industrial action due to the unsafe staffing levels we are facing in our hospitals, as it has been saying it would do for several years. The situation has been getting worse and worse. Patient safety is being put at risk. Staff morale is on the floor. This is all to do with the inability to recruit and retain nurses and other health workers. Much of that relates to our failure to provide affordable housing for nurses and other public sector workers. What is the Minister going to do about this?
The question tabled by the Deputy, in written format, referred to general levels of recruitment in our public services, as opposed to the health sector in particular. I will respond to the question the Deputy asked on the floor in the context of the health sector.
We have approximately 20,000 more people working in our health service than we did before the pandemic. That figure is at odds with the narrative put forward by the Deputy regarding our inability to recruit within our health services and keep the people who are working in them. We have more people working in the health services than we have ever had. Successful recruitment is at a higher level now than it has been in recent years. More people are working in our health service than previously. One of the reasons for that has been the public sector wage agreement, which was agreed when our country was at a moment of great uncertainty. The agreement was reached due to the work of the Minister, Deputy Michael McGrath, and in recognition of the contribution our public servants made to our country during the pandemic and the need to give them clarity and certainty regarding where they stand. In addition, we were cognisant of the impact the rising cost of living was having on them.
As for what we are doing to deliver more homes, the Deputy knows the answer to that question, although I know in advance of our exchange that he finds the measures to be inadequate. They include the building of nearly 30,000 homes last year; a record level of commencements of new homes in December and January; the building of more social houses than at any other point since the 1970s; and a 45% increase in the rate of housing completions compared with the previous year. The Government knows we need to do more. We need to keep on building homes, and we will take all the steps we can to deliver that.
The problem is that there is no sense from the Government about the emergency we are facing. The INMO does not take industrial action lightly. According to its statements, the reason nurses and midwives feel compelled to take industrial action is that 10,000 patients were left waiting on trolleys during the month of February. They make this absolutely clear. For example, the president of the INMO said:
Safe staffing should not be a pipe dream for nurses. Patients should be made aware of the severity of the staffing deficits our members are trying to work through. Hospital management in each location cannot keep trying to fill from an empty cup.
Her statement goes on. This is now increasingly true of teachers and workers in a series of other professions which are having difficulty recruiting and retaining. Central to that, but not the only issue, is the following issue. The Minister referred to the new housing that has been built. In the area around St. Vincent's University Hospital, every newly completed apartment block that is coming on stream, because they are private for-profit apartment blocks, cost between €2,500, €3,000, €3,500 and €4,000 per month to rent. How is a nurse, a teacher or anybody else expected to pay that? They might as well not have built that stuff because people cannot afford it.
The Deputy said that we might as well not have built it. Is that his attitude?
What good is it if people cannot afford it?
We might as well not have built it.
At that price.
Is that the Deputy's response to the great housing crisis and difficulty we are in?
At that price.
I accept it is a rent level that would be unaffordable for many people. I accept that but it is affordable for some. People will either live in them or rent them. Any increase in housing, any new house or apartment built and provided to somebody, is progress. It is also the reason our level of social housing output, the level of new homes being built by our approved housing bodies and local authorities, is at its highest since the 1970s. This is happening in tandem with that. We appreciate that more needs to be done. We appreciate more homes need to be made available speedily. The Deputy's reaction says an awful lot about his attitude towards housing. Let me emphasise, in relation to those homes being built, that we need more social and affordable homes as well, and that is happening.
This deserves a longer debate but let us at least start the debate. If labour, which is in short supply, is busy building a private development that will cost €3,000 in rent per month, it means the short-supply labour is not building the public and affordable housing. That is what it means in reality when we do not have enough construction workers. We are getting investor-led, profit-driven, unaffordable development that nurses and teachers - all the workers we need - cannot afford, not even the workers who build it. There is an opportunity cost there because it means these workers are not building the public and affordable housing we actually need for nurses, teachers and others, so that they can afford to live in Dublin or the big urban centres and, therefore, work in our health service. I stand over that argument. The Celtic tiger proves it. We had record housing output that nobody could afford and the economy went over a cliff as a result.
I accept we need to make progress in delivering even more homes. The Government is at pains to recognise that. However, in the Deputy's world view, there is no role for the private sector in delivering those homes. Homes built in this country by the private sector are built at a profit, and we need those homes to be built. We need a private sector that can build more homes, and in building those homes they make a profit. In tandem with that, we need the private sector to deliver homes at more affordable prices. That is why the Government has brought in a variety of schemes, which I am sure the Deputy has opposed, to enable the private sector to deliver homes at a lower price. It is also why we have the biggest plans for the delivery of more homes through our local authorities and approved housing bodies since the 1970s.
