Paul Murphy: Says Minister is 'Gaslighting' Over Health Recruitment
Paul Murphy criticised the Minister for Health and the government's motion, arguing a de facto recruitment moratorium is in place despite official denials. He called for lifting the moratorium, recruiting more staff, and warned that patient safety is being compromised.
Claims about a recruitment moratorium
The speaker argued that although the Minister for Health denies a recruitment moratorium, health unions and frontline staff describe current staffing controls as exactly that. He said the label does not matter - if it "looks like a dog" and "walks like a dog" it should be treated as one.
Contradictions in government messaging
Paul Murphy highlighted what he called mixed messages in the government's counter motion, noting the government defended a previous HSE recruitment moratorium while simultaneously funding new recruitment and claiming both that the HSE recruited too many staff and that more recruitment is necessary.
Unions, ballots and strike action
He pointed to union protests and strike ballots as evidence that workers view the situation as serious for both staff and patient safety, arguing the government was "gaslighting" health workers and the public by downplaying those concerns.
A&E waiting-room testimony
The speaker recounted a personal incident in A&E where his wife arrived at 7:30pm and was seen at 10am the next day - a wait of 14.5 hours - and said other patients waited up to 17 hours. He described 152 people waiting and criticised the normalisation of overnight waits and repeated public announcements of average waiting times.
Policy demands and service goals
Paul Murphy urged the government to listen to frontline health workers and to commit to lifting the de facto recruitment moratorium. He called for investment to recruit all necessary staff to deliver a "first-class single tier university health service," while praising the dedication of nursing and health staff working under pressure.
We publish thousands of recordings to make Irish politics transparent and resistant to manipulation. Spotted an error? Report it — together we are building a reliable archive of Irish politics.
The Minister for Health has the neck to come in here today and claim that pay in numbers is not a recruitment moratorium when that is what the health unions are telling us precisely that it is to be clear it doesn't matter to health workers or to patient safety whether it's officially called a recruitment moratorium or not if it looks like a dog if it walks like a dog if it quacks like a dog it's a dog the unions wouldn't be protesting wouldn't be balloting for strike action if this wasn't a serious issue for workers and for patient safety and actually the government's counter motion shows that as usual it is speaking out of both sides of its mouth on the one hand you claim that the previous HSE officially called recruitment moratorium was necessary on the other hand you admit that more recruitment recruitment is necessary on the one hand you claim that the HSE has recruited too many staff but on the other hand you say you are funding the HSE to recruit thousands more staff which one is it minister either the Minister for Health is confused either the government doesn't know yourselves or you are deliberately misleading the doll either way it's time you stopped gaslighting health workers and the public the government motion boasts about the number of extra nurses recruited in a range of different hospitals and I was particularly interested to see the reference to the increase in tele-hospital suggesting that this has somehow fixed the problem I can tell you from first-hand experience that it has not I brought my wife to A&E on Thursday night we got there at about 7 30 and she was seen the next morning at 10 a.m. 14 and a half hours she wasn't the worst there was people there who had to wait to be seen for 17 hours when we got there there was 152 people waiting sick people older people sitting on hard chairs overnight because they had emergencies and they needed to be seen but this is so normalized that you have announcements on a kind of half hourly basis saying this many people are waiting this is the average waiting time we've normalized the idea that people have to wait overnight hundreds of people overnight on a Thursday night to get seen in a hospital of course once you get admitted the care that you get from the nurses from all the health staff is excellent this should not be normal this should not be accepted patients shouldn't be forced to put up with this and staff shouldn't be forced to work in these conditions the truth is not that we have too many health staff in our health service we have nowhere near enough staff anyone can see the huge pressure that they're under so actually we should get a commitment to lifting the de facto recruitment moratorium you should listen to frontline health workers who are the real experts here and you should invest in recruiting all the necessary staff to provide a first-class single tier university health service
Thank you for downloading 🙏
If you publish this material on social media, we would be very grateful if you tagged VideoParliament. It helps us reach more people and keep building a transparent archive of Irish politics.
