Seanad Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 7 Oct 2015

Vol. 242 No. 7

Commencement Matters

Health Services Staff Recruitment

Senator Lorraine Higgins

I thank the Minister of State for taking this matter. I call on the Minister for Health to provide a derogation for 20 health care assistant-multitask attendant and nursing posts to be advertised and filled locally at St. Brendan's community nursing unit, Ballinasloe, County Galway, in the light of the failure of the HSE to hire these staff. This had been agreed to last February when stakeholders met to discuss the opening of a step-down beds unit in St. Brendan's in Ballinasloe. The unit is operated by St. Brendan's in Loughrea, but the understanding was that 20 posts would be allocated. The opening of the beds was due to the ongoing LRC talks to relieve pressure on county and accident and emergency departments.

The HSE provided quick finance to get the unit up and running and it was agreed that the unit could hire agency workers while the hiring of full-time staff was being conducted. However, the HSE national recruitment service is not progressing the filling of the posts seven months after agreement was reached and the full-time permanent positions are in a state of limbo with agency staff filling the roles. This is simply an advertise, interview and hire procedure; therefore, the delay is ludicrous. The matter needs to be resolved as soon as possible because the impact of full-time permanent employment on 20 families would be immense. This issue should not be allowed to drag on without clarity or action because, at the end of the day, hiring agency staff is costly to the Exchequer and the taxpayer.

I have contacted the Minister for Health's office twice in the past month, but I have not received a response to either of my e-mails on this matter. It is urgent and should not be allowed to drag on indefinitely without a decision being arrived at. It is shocking to think we have a national recruitment service that takes seven or eight months to fill posts. I am sure there are 20 multitask attendants available who would relish the opportunity to take a full-time permanent post which would set them up for life. I call on the Minister of State to do what she can urgently to influence the Minister to rectify this matter at the earliest convenience.

Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government (Deputy Ann Phelan)

I thank the Senator for raising this matter which I am taking on behalf of the Minister for Health who is on Government business elsewhere.

The policy of the Government is to support older people to live in dignity and independence in their own homes and to keep them in their communities for as long as possible.

If it becomes necessary for older people to move to a nursing home, appropriate accommodation must be available that meets their care needs and matches their wishes and preferences. The Health Service Executive, HSE, is responsible for the delivery of health and personal social services, including those at St. Brendan's community nursing unit, Ballinasloe, County Galway. Part of the HSE's long-term plan for the community nursing unit is to open all 50 beds, of which 25 will be long stay residential care beds and 25 will be short stay beds. I have been informed by the HSE that it has contacted the Health Information and Quality Authority, HIQA, to register this facility and while the process is under way, the plan is to open a further ten short stay beds, by December, depending on staffing. Subject to any requirement HIQA may have, it is a matter for the HSE to determine the staffing complement and the ratio of nursing to support staff. In this instance, the staffing levels have been agreed. However, there is a delay in appointing staff to the posts. The HSE established the National Recruitment Service, NRS, in 2009 as part of the policy of developing shared services. The current difficulties in sourcing nurses relate to shortages of potential nursing staff in Ireland and worldwide shortages, rather than a failing on the part of the NRS.

Notwithstanding the difficulties faced in recruiting nurses, I advise that an extra 578 whole-time equivalent nurses and midwives were employed between August 2014 and August 2015. In addition, the HSE is planning to recruit over 500 nurses across a number of nursing disciplines. There is significant work being undertaken to achieve this. It includes recent and ongoing national and local interviewing of all categories of nurses and midwives.

The HSE has also developed an international nurse recruitment project to fill posts. This initiative is a targeted recruitment drive in the United Kingdom, primarily focused on Irish trained nurses who left during the moratorium. There are plans to broaden the campaign. The HSE has also significantly increased multi-task attendant and health care assistant numbers. Including interns, the number of multi-task attendants has increased by 270 in the past 12 months and the number of health care assistants by 700.

I reaffirm the Government's commitment to the delivery of care at the most appropriate level, in particular the provision of nursing home care as an alternative to long stay acute hospital care, given the capacity pressures on the acute sector. The opening of additional beds in homes such as St. Brendan's community nursing unit will be pursued as a priority to support persons who can no longer live at home and those who do not require acute hospital care.

Senator Lorraine Higgins

I know that this is not the Minister of State’s specific area of responsibility and that she is standing in for the Minister for Health, Deputy Leo Varadkar, but that answer is not satisfactory. I am not disputing the Government’s level of care, but I am disputing the fact that decisions were made last February to hire 20 staff for the unit in question. In his response the Minister goes on about staff shortages, but that is not the whole picture or answer. There are agency staff in place. Perhaps it is time we interviewed them and made them permanent and cut the cost to the Exchequer. The Minister needs to intervene in this matter to get these jobs up and running and make 20 people permanent. Obviously, the offshoot of this and the multiplier effect in Loughrea and Ballinasloe would be enormous. I ask the Minister of State to use her offices to contact the Minister. I have tried to contact him, but I have not received a satisfactory response. I would greatly appreciate it if the Minister of State used her good offices to ask him to intervene to sort out the matter at his earliest possible opportunity.

Deputy Ann Phelan

I understand the Senator’s frustration and will undertake to contact the Minister’s office. The answer states this matter “will be pursued as a priority”.

Schools Building Projects Status

Senator Brian Ó Domhnaill

This motion relates to Scoil Mhuire in Stranorlar. I accept that the Minister of State, Deputy Ann Phelan, does not have responsibility for education matters and that it is unfortunate that the Minister for Education and Skills is not present, but I also accept that she may have other commitments. Nonetheless, I want to outline the difficult and serious situation at Scoil Mhuire in Stranorlar where there are 452 pupils enrolled for the 2015-16 school year. The principal, Mr. Keating, and his staff have been doing a tremendous job under the most extreme of difficult circumstances. The pupils are in a school which is not fit for purpose in this day and age. Education is so important to the future of young people that the facilities in which they are educated also play an important and fundamental role in how they are educated.

The increased pupil numbers in the school have been provided for the Department of Education and Skills. In the school year 2014-15 there were 57 new pupils in junior infants. This year the number has increased to 70. Of the 452 pupils in the school, 170 are being taught in prefabricated buildings. That is unacceptable in this day and age. I have visited the school on several occasions, as have many of my Oireachtas colleagues from County Donegal who have been raising the issue in the other House. It is urgent. Only four of the 12 permanent classrooms in the school have a toilet or running water. That is not acceptable. This is one of the largest primary schools in County Donegal. There are other issues relating to traffic and health and safety, particularly when there is traffic in the morning and the evening. The entrance to the school is located within the grounds of a church car park. At busy times such as funerals, weddings and when people are attending mass, it is very difficult to access the school. This creates major dangers for the kids from junior infants to sixth class.

I know that the Government is contemplating a new school capital building programme. It is imperative that this project be put on the shelf and included in that programme. The school is at stage 2a, draft report stage. A site has been identified and Donegal County Council has granted planning permission for a site adjacent to the new state-of-the-art Finn Valley sports complex. It is ideal from the point of view of child welfare, safety, education and the provision of extra-curricular activities in the Finn Valley sports complex.

The project was going to be put out to tender before the Minister’s predecessor, Deputy Ruairí Quinn, took office. Unfortunately, it was moved out of the capital building programme, but it needs to be put back in forthwith. It is shovel-ready in every sense of the word. All that is required is ministerial and political approval to allow it to proceed. Politics should not come into it because this is a child welfare and educational development issue. I hope that, on the grounds of the merits I have outlined and the board of management has provided for the Department, the project will see the light of day and be allowed to proceed to building and tender stage early in 2016.

Deputy Ann Phelan

I am taking this debate on behalf of the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Jan O'Sullivan. I thank the Deputy for raising the matter as it provides me with an opportunity to clarify the position on the major capital project at Scoil Mhuire in Stranorlar.

The Deputy will be aware of the demographic challenge facing the education system in the coming years. The Department's latest published projections for primary pupil enrolments indicate a increase in the order of some 29,000 pupils in the school year 2018-19 compared with current levels. In order to meet the needs of the growing population of schoolgoing children, the Department must establish new schools, as well as extend or replace several existing schools in areas where demographic growth has been identified. The delivery of these new schools, together with extension projects to meet future demand, will be the main focus of the Department's budget in the coming years.

Stranorlar has not been identified as an area of significant demographic growth. In 2014-15 there appears to be a slight spike in enrolment in the area. However, enrolment in the area is expected to gradually decline in the next few years. Notwithstanding the fact that Stranorlar has not been identified as an area of growth, a new site for the proposed new school was completed some time ago. A project brief was prepared and the project has been advanced to the architectural planning process.

The project at Scoil Mhuire B and C, Stranorlar, will consist of a new three-storey, 24-classroom school with ancillary accommodation on a greenfield site. The design team for the project was appointed in March 2014. The original project supervisor for the design process, PSDP, ceased trading shortly after its appointment and a replacement PSDP member of the design team was subsequently appointed. The school building project is at an early stage of architectural planning - stage 2a, developed design. A stage 2a stakeholder meeting involving officials from the Department and the school's the board of management and its design team will take place shortly. Following this meeting and subject to no issues arising, the project will be authorised to progress to stage 2b - detailed design stage - which includes the making of applications for fire certificates and disability access certificates and the preparation of tender documents. Planning permission has been secured, as the Senator pointed out.

School building projects, including the project at Scoil Mhuire, which have not been included in the five-year construction programme are being progressed to the final planning stages in anticipation of the possibility of further funds being available to the Department in future years.

On behalf of the Minister for Education and Skills, I again thank the Senator for giving me the opportunity to outline the current position on the major capital project at Scoil Mhuire, Stranorlar.

Senator Brian Ó Domhnaill

I thank the Minister of State for her comprehensive and favourable response. I wish to raise one issue which seems to emanate from departmental officials and, perhaps, the Minister, that is, the focus on providing schools in areas where demographics dictate, in other words, areas where growth is occurring. I am sure the Minister of State who has responsibility for rural development will be concerned about this. While expanding populations in commuter belts must be dealt with, if schools in rural areas are not given the opportunity to develop, young families will migrate to areas where there are better schools. Unfortunately, that is the reality in Stranorlar and other rural areas where school building projects have not been given the go ahead and families decided to put their children in other schools. That is wrong and there needs to be a shift away from this approach.

I welcome the response on the school in Stranorlar and the fact that the project can proceed to stage 2b - detailed design phase - which involves the preparation of tender documents. That is important. I ask the Minister of State to consider the demographics issue for smaller schools in rural areas in the context of her brief. Perhaps she might link up with the Department of Education and Skills. She has a responsible and important role within government and I hope this and other Departments are listening to her input.

Deputy Ann Phelan

I thank the Senator and will take some of his comments on board. I am keeping a close eye on this issue. While accepting the current position, I draw his attention to the fact that while the school in Stranorlar and other schools have not been included in the five-year construction plan, they are being progressed to the final planning stages in anticipation of the possibility of further funds being made available. The Senator has raised an important issue in the context of my role as Minister of State with responsibility for rural economic development.

Sitting suspended at 10.55 a.m. and resumed at 11.30 a.m.