Some Rotunda staff commuting from Spain due to cost of living in Ireland, says hospital master

A number of staff at the Rotunda Hospital in Dublin are commuting from Spain and Germany because it is more affordable than living in Ireland, according to the master of the hospital.

Five members of staff travel from their homes on the continent, typically for one week a month, said Prof Sean Daly. While in Dublin, they stay in nurses’ accommodation at the hospital dating back to the 1930s.

Some were previously living in Ireland but were unable to afford long commutes to work in the city centre hospital, so opted to move back to the European mainland and commute from there.

Prof Daly described the accommodation provided in the nurses’ home as “pretty basic”, comprising single rooms and shared bathroom and dining spaces.

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There are 70 rooms in the home, of which 35-40 are used for short-term stays. The hospital has made proposals to Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly and Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien to upgrade or rebuild the accommodation.

“The rooms as they are now are not fit for purpose, but if modernised, they could greatly help to attract skilled staff to work in the hospital,” he said.

In an interview with The Irish Times, Prof Daly described the searing impact of the stabbings and subsequent rioting in Dublin of November 23rd on the hospital and its staff.

[ Master of Rotunda: ‘The amount of social deprivation on the north side of Dublin has been an eye-opener’ ]

The mayhem unfolded in the streets around the hospital, which provided emergency blood that was used to treat the five-year-old girl who was severely injured in the knife attack. The girl’s mother last week said the child was “out of danger” and has left intensive care.

“It went from relatively quiet to absolutely terrible in a short period of time,” Prof Daly said of the events of November 23rd. “When you looked out there was a row of gardaí between the hospital and the mayhem. They kept us safe. God knows what might have happened otherwise.”

The hospital was not damaged in the rioting but staff, many of them from overseas, had to be ferried into work by taxi the following day because they did not feel safe. Extra security was deployed in the immediate aftermath of the violence.

About 8,300 babies were born in the Rotunda in 2023, up 1 per cent on the previous year’s total. Seventeen of them were delivered on the night of the rioting.

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