asked the Minister for Health if the school of nursing in the new Tallaght Hospital, County Dublin, will be exempt from the provisions of the Nurses Act relating to selection of trainee nurses.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Tallaght (Dublin) Hospital.
6.
The school of nursing to be established in Tallaght Hospital will not be exempt from a central applications bureau if such a bureau is established by An Bord Altranais. However, I have given an undertaking to the Adelaide Hospital whereby up to 40 places will be reserved in the nurse training school at Tallaght Hospital so that the ethos of the Adelaide Hospital Nurse Training School may be preserved. The Tallaght Hospital Board have agreed to this arrangement and An Bord Altranais is fully aware of it.
What is the reason for the change? There is a section in the Nurses Act whereby hospital boards will be responsible for the number of trainee nurses selected.
A central applications bureau will be established by An Bord Altranais. Students will then be selected in the same way as all other students and it will be a matter for the Adelaide Hospital to ensure, through contact with second level schools, that prospective candidates will understand what is required, that they will have attained the necessary standard and then they will put themselves forward. The commitment is to preserve up to 40 places in the new Tallaght Hospital Training School in order to preserve the ethos of this hospital.
While the Minister was telling us in this House in reply to an amendment on the Report Stage of the Nurses Bill about this proposal in hospitals throughout the country, he was writing to the Tallaght Hospital Board telling them to do exactly what he was telling us in the House he would not allow in any circumstances.
If the Deputy is making the allusion I think he is making, it has no relevance to the question.
In the House we asked that all hospitals would have an input into the selection of trainee nurses so that the character and ethos of those hospitals would be retained. The Minister refused to accept our amendment on Committee and Report Stages of the Nurses Bill, but while that Bill was going through the House in August 1984, he was writing to the Tallaght board to tell them to do exactly what we had asked him to do in our amendments and which he refused to do for the other hospitals throughout the country.
The Deputy is reopening an argument on a previous statement. The question is quite specific.
I agree. Will the Minister extend the facilities he has given to the Tallaght Hospital Board to the other hospitals throughout the country who wish to maintain their character and ethos?
The Deputy, his party Leader and Deputy Woods, two previous Ministers for Health, know perfectly well that if the Protestant ethos of the Tallaght Hospital is to have any prospect of survival a particular arrangement would have to be entered into in relation to nurse training on the transfer of a number of hospitals to one hospital in Tallaght, including the Adelaide Hospital. I received representations in that regard — and there is legislative provision for this — and I met a delegation from the hospital and I resolved it in the manner well known to the Deputy on 5 July 1984. The letter from the Secretary of the Department of Health was not concealed in any way. The letter was to the secretary-manager of the hospital. It was a public letter to a public board, there was no selectivity or concealment and I have no apology for having made that arrangement.
Can the Minister tell the House——
This is the first day after the Recess and we should not drift back into the old way of dealing with a few questions each day. I am anxious to make progress.