Sinn Fein Justice Spokesperson Martin Kenny is calling on the Justice Minister to prioritise the processing of working visas for some health care workers.
The Leitrim TD says the Atypical Working Visas allow for the recruitment of staff from overseas, but there's a major back-log that has led to delays of several weeks in processing the visas.
Deputy Kenny says that with the health service at breaking point due to the Coivd outbreak it's imperative that the Department does something immediately to allow up to 200 extra nurses to come on stream.
He says that when the pandemic began originally in March of last year the Department was able to process the applications in 48 hours.
Martin Kenny says with this outbreak much more widespread than the first it's not acceptable to have the Department dragging its heels…