Nurses were the victims in over 70% of assaults on health service staff over the past decade.

New figures released to Sinn Féin show that there were 10,744 reported assaults on health service staff since 2008.

There have been nearly 1,000 this year alone, 615 of which were on nurses.

Sinn Féin health spokesperson Louise O’Reilly said measures must be put in place to protect health service workers.

“This is very, very worrying – most especially because we are in the midst of a recruitment and retention crisis within nursing and right across the health service,” she said.

“When we consider that for every four vacancies in nursing there is only one application, we can see that the workforce is operating at staffing levels that are much, much less than they should be.

“Obviously this is going to create an environment where an assault is more likely.”

She said nurses and health care worker have told her that there is a very high level of underreporting of violence against healthcare workers.

“I do find that very, very worrying and I think the minister needs to reflect on these figures,” she said.

“He needs to ensure that he has a target in place for reducing the number of assaults.

“He needs to make sure that the health service and senior health service managers understand that reporting of assaults is a good and a necessary thing and only by having full reporting will we be able to fully deal with it.”

Deputy O’Reilly is calling for “concrete measures” to be put in place to ensure the health service is a safe place to work.

She said a dedicated security guard should be assigned to every Emergency Department in the country – with increased resources for areas that have experienced the highest levels of violence in the past.