Natasha Newsome Drennan: Nurses Deserve Action, Not Words
Natasha Newsome Drennan addresses the Dail to back nurses and condemn the policies that have driven thousands to emigrate. She warns that praise from Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael will be empty without real changes and calls for policies to bring nurses home.
Natasha Newsome Drennan opens by expressing solidarity and thanks to nurses working and training across Ireland, and to the many who were forced to emigrate. She says Sinn Féin will work to build conditions that allow nurses the real choice to return with secure housing and a decent quality of life.
Drennan lays blame on the policies of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael over the last decade, arguing the health service has paid a heavy price as expertise left for countries such as Australia. She challenges current government members who praise nurses while failing to deliver better conditions.
She highlights past comments from Fine Gael figures and points to the impact on hospitals like St Luke's in Kilkenny, where understaffing and resource shortfalls punish staff who do their best. The address stresses that praise alone is not enough.
Drennan emphasizes the lived reality of nurses: long hours, chronic understaffing, high patient-staff ratios and harsh workloads. She insists that the public and policymakers must turn gratitude into concrete improvements in pay, staffing and working conditions.
Solidarity with nurses
Natasha Newsome Drennan opens by expressing solidarity and thanks to nurses working and training across Ireland, and to the many who were forced to emigrate. She says Sinn Féin will work to build conditions that allow nurses the real choice to return with secure housing and a decent quality of life.
Critique of past governments
Drennan lays blame on the policies of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael over the last decade, arguing the health service has paid a heavy price as expertise left for countries such as Australia. She challenges current government members who praise nurses while failing to deliver better conditions.
Examples and local impact
She highlights past comments from Fine Gael figures and points to the impact on hospitals like St Luke's in Kilkenny, where understaffing and resource shortfalls punish staff who do their best. The address stresses that praise alone is not enough.
Demand for action
Drennan emphasizes the lived reality of nurses: long hours, chronic understaffing, high patient-staff ratios and harsh workloads. She insists that the public and policymakers must turn gratitude into concrete improvements in pay, staffing and working conditions.
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Transcript
Minister, I strongly welcome these statements today and I want to express my solidarity and thanks to all the nurses working and training across Ireland right now. And to the many thousands of our nurses who have been forced to emigrate by the failed policies of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, I want you to know this, we will work to build the conditions that give you the real choice to return home with secure housing and a good quality of life. Over the past ten years our health service has paid a heavy price because those in power have failed to value and respect our nurses. The knowledge and expertise we have lost to the likes of Australia is hard to comprehend. And while members of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael will line up here today to sing praises of our nurses, it will be just words, empty words. To be fair, Fine Gael, they have never hidden how they view our nurses. Shall we all remember the then Minister for Health, Simon Harris, threatening to impose financial penalties on striking nurses? Or Leo Vrádka telling us that it's best to keep our hospitals under-resourced with fewer beds because according to him, if a hospital isn't under pressure, the staff will kick back and relax. That culture in Fine Gael has ensured that any improvement in working conditions for nurses has had to be dragged out of the government. And it is that critical mindset that shows Fine Gael simply does not understand what it's like to work as a nurse. The long, unsociable hours, chronic understaffing, the physical demands, high patient-staff ratio and harsh workloads. And that is ever more present in St Luke's Hospital in Kilkenny. For those that do the best, they get punished more. Where we see resources for hospitals going into black holes, the likes of St Luke's Hospital do their very best with what they get, but they get a slap on the wrist for it. They don't get the resources that they need. You need to look at this. Yet, despite these hard conditions day in, day out, our nurses go above and beyond. They provide a level of warmth, care and support to members of the public who find themselves in need at a time of great vulnerability. That deserves more than praise. It deserves action.