There are now approximately 630 vacancies for nurses and midwives in public hospitals across the country.
As part of a move to tackle this problem, the Government is to offer permanent jobs to all 1,500 nursing graduates this year.
However, it remains to be seen whether such job offers will be sufficient to attract young nurses and midwives in large numbers, at a time when they are increasingly in demand both in Ireland and abroad.
In essence, the State is competing both with the private hospital sector in Ireland and with hospitals in the UK, Canada and Australia for nursing personnel.
There are about 35,000 nurses working for the HSE and in public voluntary hospitals, while about 800 staff retire annually.
Restrictions
But while the Government has now abandoned the recruitment restrictions it introduced – following the collapse in the public finances in 2009 – it is now experiencing difficulties in getting young nurses to work in Ireland’s public hospitals again.
According to the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO), the problem for hospitals is being compounded as more experienced nurses are also opting to leave for posts offering better pay and conditions.
A recruitment campaign, including a package of incentives aimed at recruiting up to 500 Irish nurses and midwives in the UK, which was launched a year ago, has not succeeded.
According to the INMO, only about 90 staff were taken on and about half of these quickly left again.
Nurses’ pay is strictly governed by the various public service agreements introduced over recent years.
Pay has been reduced twice – in some cases, three times since 2009 – while working hours have been increased by an hour and a half per week.
Conditions
Nursing unions contend that pay, conditions, staffing levels and working hours will also have to form part of an overall initiative if the recruitment and retention problem is to be tackled.
Unions maintain that private hospitals in Ireland are offering nurses signing on payments of up to €5,000, as well as subsidised accommodation and flexible working hours.
Similar payments, subsidised accommodation and greater access to postgraduate training are also on offer from employers in the UK.
The Government is to establish a new commission to look at the whole issue of public service pay generally and to make recommendations to it next year.
However, any major pay award to nurses – or to doctors, where there is also a skills shortage in key areas – will be watched jealously by other public service groups.
One of the tests for the Government's planned Public Service Pay Commission will be how it addresses the growing problems in recruiting and retaining staff in key areas, without undermining the entire public service pay edifice built up over recent years.
