The issue of 11 beds being closed at Linn Dara in Cherry Orchard was raised in the Chamber yesterday. This is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to staff shortages. I want to list the theatres throughout the country where there have been closures because of staff shortages, as I believe this is a symptom of something else. Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital, Crumlin, had two full theatre closures over a six-week period due to staffing shortages, while Temple Street Children’s University Hospital had one theatre closure for the same reason. Theatre closures were reported in all constituent hospitals at the Dublin Midlands Hospital Group. At St. James’s Hospital, there were two to three theatres closed per day, depending on nursing shortages on the rota. In St. Luke’s Hospital, Kilkenny, an elective theatre closed because of staffing shortages. A new theatre had not opened in Wexford General Hospital due to the difficulty in securing specialty theatre nursing staff. This is a symptom of something much bigger, and that something bigger is pay and conditions for nurses.

I want to move on to something equally crucial which nobody has picked up on in the Chamber this week. A report in The Irish Times this week on mental health assessments for children is quite damning. The report states:

There were 2,520 children and young people on waiting lists for an initial assessment for mental health services in February 2017, an increase of 44 per cent on the same period last year, according to the HSE. ... Barnardos has said these delays are having “long-term unnecessary consequences” on children and “affecting every aspect of their development”. ... It found almost 60 per cent have been waiting for more than a year while a quarter (26 per cent) have been waiting more than two years for an initial appointment.

I find this incredible. The reason Linn Dara has a shortage of nurses is that nurses are emigrating for better pay and conditions. The past year has seen systematic cuts to their conditions and pay. We are living not only with a two-tier health system but a two-tier pay system, whereby nurses and medical professionals are going to the private sector rather than the public sector.

The mantra of Fine Gael over the past six years has been to create the conditions for growth and prosperity. However, the Taoiseach and his party have created the conditions for this crisis. Fundamentally, I think the Taoiseach is a very decent man, but how can he, after six years, turn around, hold his head high and say that, in his tenure as Taoiseach, this was a success?

I would actually find that embarrassing as a member of the party he is in and as a citizen of this country. How can the Taoiseach justify those cuts and that shortage in this country?

The Deputy is a decent man too. I respect his right to raise in the House any issues he feels strongly about. When the predecessor to this Government was elected, we were blocked out of all the international markets, bond yields were at 15%, the unemployment rate was 15.2%, we were haemorrhaging jobs by the ten thousands, and there was despair and disillusionment all over the place. Now, because of the sacrifice of the people, that has changed considerably. We are now able to borrow money for the State at less than 1%. The unemployment rate is down to 6.3% or 6.4% and is heading in the right direction. More than 225,000 jobs have been created since the Minister, Deputy Bruton, introduced the first Action Plan for Jobs.

The Deputy referred to the recruitment of nurses. The Minister, Deputy Harris, has addressed this on a number of occasions. There are now incentives for nurses. Permanent contracts are offered to all new nurses coming out of highly specialised training here in Ireland. There are opportunities for nurses to return home to work in the hospital service here in Ireland. Not everybody will do that. Young people in all walks of life tend to move to other countries for experience in travel and to develop their skills.

The Minister of State, Deputy McEntee, has been working very hard on the issue of mental health. Yesterday she went to the Linn Dara facility where only half of the 22 beds are occupied. During her visit she was given assurances that any patients discharged from the Linn Dara facility are children who are discharged for clinical reasons only. The HSE confirmed to the Minister of State that no young person will be discharged unless deemed clinically appropriate by their mental health team. Nobody is being discharged to allow a bed to be closed.

The HSE has also assured the Minister of State that for patients who are discharged for clinical reasons, dedicated follow-on support is available from the community-based child and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS. They will continue to be provided as required on a routine basis. The Health Service Executive will also increase the capacity of the child and adolescent mental health day services during the summer to enhance the level of support available for those children and their families.

The core issue facing the Linn Dara facility relates specifically to staff recruitment difficulties for mental health professionals, which unfortunately, as the Deputy has pointed out, reflects wider health system recruitment and retention issues. I assure the Deputy that the problem facing the Linn Dara facility does not relate to funding availability but to staffing availability. Intensive efforts are under way to increase staffing to allow more beds to be reallocated. The HSE is actively engaged in a recruitment process, with a number of staff due to support the service in the near future. I hope that will improve things.

An allocation of €15.5 billion is now going into the health services. All nurses coming out of Irish training institutions are offered permanent contracts giving them the opportunity to work at home here in our own hospitals.

While that all sounds well and good, there seems to be a perennial problem and we go from crisis to crisis in the health service. It is not rocket science. In a country where there is a lot of money sloshing around, we should have a health system that works for everybody, regardless of whether they are millionaires or unemployed. That is how it should work. Nobody should have to wait two years for any sort of assessment. It is a disgrace.

The closures at the Linn Dara facility and elsewhere come down to not paying nurses properly. The past seven or eight years have taken their toll on nurses and other public sector workers. They are demoralised and have to work an extra hour per week just to make ends meet. This is the fundamental problem. On Friday at 4 o'clock in Cherry Orchard there will be a protest over the cutbacks.

There is another point about public sector pay. I do not want to make it personal because I try to differentiate between the personal and political.

However, the Taoiseach is going to walk away with a massive pension in two weeks' time. He will get a golden handshake and a pension of €150,000. Most people listening to these proceedings will be nauseated when they hear that. That is the two-tier system we have in this country, where politicians go off into the sunshine with golden handshakes and big money. Is the Taoiseach not ashamed of what he has left behind?

I am very proud of the people of this country for responding to an unprecedented economic crisis in a way that has made us the envy of many in Europe and has left us with the fastest growing economy in the European Union for the past four years running.

People are waiting two years for simple assessments.

Deputy Gino Kenny got his opportunity.

I admit that we have many challenges ahead but the changes that have been brought about have put the country in a much safer position than was the case previously.

Not if one is trying to get a hospital bed.

No doubt Deputy Gino Kenny has spoken to many constituents who have been treated by the health service and who have nothing but praise for the doctors, nurses and attendants who looked after them. The problem has always been to get into the system and to have the capacity to deal with that. That is why the Government has treated the health service as a priority, why €14.5 billion has been allocated and why changes are constantly being made through primary care centres, home-care packages and the provision of community care teams to look after people.

In respect of the payment situation the Deputy made for nurses, the same arguments are made for gardaí, members of the Defence Forces, teachers, public servants and others. Those talks are now beginning in full with officials from the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and the trade unions. The Minister hopes to engage intensively in those talks now with a view to concluding them by the end of June, and getting an extension of the Lansdowne Road agreement where benefits were won and agreed with the unions involved.

In respect of the matter relating to pensions, I will, when I leave this seat, continue to be paid as a backbench Deputy.

I know that.

But a big pension will follow.

That completes Leaders' Questions. Deputy Boyd Barrett should remember that Deputy Gino Kenny is leader today.

If it is that easy lads, come into government.