Nurses are being treated appallingly, working very long hours for really poor pay and it is little wonder that so many of them are travelling abroad for better opportunities, a meeting of Kerry County Council has heard.
Cllr Michael Cahill said all nurses should get an immediate 10 per cent pay rise – for starters – as the morale on the job is at an all-time low.
“They are underpaid for their labour in the intense working environment that is a hospital setting. Large sums are paid to agencies to recruit nursing staff from abroad and, meanwhile, Irish nurses are emigrating in search of better pay and conditions.
“It would make a lot more sense if we improved the pay scales of our overworked nurses in reward for their fine service and, at the same time, attract more staff to remain in Ireland,” Cllr Cahill said.
He told the meeting that nurses train for up to four years, get token pay in their internship in the final year but not very much and by year four, they do not receive proper training as there is not enough qualified staff to teach them.
“They have been thrown in at the deep end – particularly during Covid – and work long, hard hours yet they are not being treated properly as they do not receive overtime or receive payback time,” Cllr Cahill added.
He called on Kerry County Council to request the Health Service Executive to supply details of the costs involved in recruiting nursing staff from abroad for Kerry hospitals from abroad over the past five years and the comparative cost of a 10 per cent pay rise for nurses already here.
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