I echo the call I made yesterday for the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation and the HSE to actively engage with the Workplace Relations Commission to avert the proposed strike for 15 December. No one would win in that situation. Elderly people will be traumatised, they will be stressed and worried about the inadequate care they may receive as a result of that strike. There are problems in the health service at the moment. The State has an ageing population, we have an increasing population and there has been major under-investment in facilities for the last decade. However, the emergency department task force which was put in place earlier in 2015 is making progress. There are fewer people on trolleys than there were a year ago and 200 additional hospital beds have been opened since October 2015 with more coming on stream. In facilities such as University Hospital Galway, until such a time as the new emergency department is built, the problems there will not be fully resolved. Actions will be required in the meantime to ensure the problems are minimised.

Senator Norris made reference to the additional nurses who were recruited. There are 800 more nurses in the system than last year and 400 are in the recruitment process. I would welcome a discussion with the Minister for Health, Deputy Leo Varadkar, regarding how these issues can be expedited.

Finally, I ask the Leader to organise a debate with the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Deputy Richard Bruton, on the regional action plan for jobs.

It is fantastic news that unemployment levels have fallen below 9% for the first time since 2008. However, there are areas of the country that have not benefited from the upturn in the economy. The regional action plans have the potential to help towns like Ballinasloe, the Cathaoirleach's own town of Castlebar and other towns in the west. I would like a debate in this Chamber on those action plans.

Joining the Cathaoirleach's welcome to the students from Castlebar, I welcome two visitors from Ballinasloe who are in the Visitors Gallery today, Dan Dowling and Willie Ward.

Yesterday in the Leader's absence, many of us again called for a debate on health care. I support the proposed amendment to the Order of Business. For almost six months now, Senators from Government and Opposition have been calling for the Minister for Health to come before the Seanad, not to deal with legislation but to take statements on health care. An awful lot has happened in those six months. The Government has abandoned the plan for universal health insurance. We have chaos in accident and emergency wards across the State. Capacity has been stripped from our hospitals because of five budgets delivered by this Government.

Every single Government representative has to take responsibility for what is happening in our health service. It is wrong for any Government Senator, be it Senator Mullins or anyone else, to put the blame for whatever chaos they say might arise from industrial action on the shoulders of the nurses. They are operating on the front line under fierce pressure, and have been for years, because of the policies adopted by Fine Gael and the Labour Party and decisions the current Government took when it voted for budgets that took billions of euro out of the health service.

In the Leader's own county there are 300 fewer staff at University Hospital Waterford. One and a half surgical theatres are lying idle because we do not have the nurses, doctors or consultants to make sure people are treated. The Leader knows the figures because I have presented them to him before. The result is over 8,000 patients waiting longer than 12 months, with pressure points in orthopaedics, ophthalmology, and ear nose and throat, where people are waiting in some cases over two years. We still do not have 24-7 cardiology. We do not have the palliative care unit we were promised. We do not have the community nursing unit we were promised. That is why we have pressure in our accident and emergency ward in University Hospital Waterford. That is why we have the lead consultant talking about the chaos in that department. It is a symptom of all the other failures of this Government.

It is good that at some point the Minister for Health might come before the Seanad but that is not going to provide one extra bed, nurse or doctor, or one extra cent for the health service. If the Minister, Deputy Varadkar, is coming into the Seanad, I want him to present a plan on how we deal with this problem. It is at crisis point and it is not fair to blame the nurses. They are going on strike not because they want to but because they are forced into it by the unbearable conditions in which they are being asked to work. That is the responsibility of the Leader and the Minister. I ask the Leader to get the Minister into the House so we can have a debate, but let him come with an action plan and let him tell us how he and the Government - the Labour Party and Fine Gael - are going to do something about the crisis in our health services.

We would all welcome the Minister, Deputy Varadkar, to the House for a further debate on health.

Today.

To be fair to the Minister, he is always very accommodating with this House.

Not for questions and answers.

When he was only in his ministerial role about five or six days, he came in and took a Private Members' motion which I had tabled, to which he gave a very comprehensive response.

Well done. He was getting paid for it.

I have no doubt that the Leader will organise such a debate at the earliest opportunity.

In reflecting on what is happening in the IFA at the moment, we must realise the importance of the IFA in terms of lobbying and ensuring that farmers get as fair a deal as possible. I consider it one of the most powerful unions in the country and I have no doubt it will overcome its present difficulties.

I do believe that transparency is appropriate at all senior management levels within the IFA and indeed in all other organisations that are in any way supported by the State or the taxpayer. There should be accountability at senior level. There is accountability here in the House because all of our salaries and expenses are published, as is the case with the other House, Ministers and the Taoiseach. In that regard, we do lead by example. I call on all organisations, be they unions, lobby groups, charities, political parties or any other organisation that is supported in any way by the taxpayer, to publish all senior management grades, salaries, remunerations, pensions benefits and so forth. If that does not happen, I will call on the Leader to request the Government to introduce legislation to ensure it does. If there is not a voluntary code of disclosure and ethics in this whole area, we will need to legislate for such a code.