He slams health minister over ‘smoke and mirrors’ effective recruitment ban in health

Louth Labour TD Ged Nash, who is the party’s Finance spokesperson has slammed the Minister for Health, stating that the ‘effective recruitment ban’ in the HSE falls firmly at the Fianna Fáil Minister’s door. 

Deputy Nash attended Thursday’s lunchtime protest at Our Lady of Lourdes hospital organised by trade unions where he said: 

“The smoke and mirrors ‘pay and numbers’ strategy is wearing out hardworking staff and putting patients at risk” he said, adding that this is the logical outcome of the “work of fiction health budget” Minister Stephen Donnelly ran through the Dail last year. 

“He admitted on the day of Budget 2024 last October that he had secured from Fine Gael €2billion less than was needed to run the health service this year. 

“The head of the HSE had also admitted this. A Minister has one job – securing a realistic budget for his Department. He failed to do so.

“In any other country if a Minister fails to do that, he does the decent thing. That’s not how accountability works with this government. 

“The Fianna Fail Minister has been scrambling around to fix the mess he made, since. While he has been allocated more money for this year and next it has come at a real price for staff and patients. 

“He has been told to accept an inadequate Budget and the consequences of this is a dramatic slowing down of recruitment. 

“It is bizarre that they have decided that all unfilled posts as of 31st December 2023 are effectively obsolete. 2024 somehow is now year one. 

“This has thrown the health service into turmoil and I know that at senior decision-making levels in the HSE there is a marked reluctance to sign off on even basic recruitment. 

“There is no doubt that, over the years when it comes to investment in the health service there was plenty of blame to go around the entire system. 

“This time around, and at a time of plenty, the blame for too few nurses, health care assistants, support staff and all the categories of workers in terms of those who we rely on to keep our health service running, lies firmly at the door of Fianna Fail’s Health Minister and this conservative coalition.”