MY BUDGET: nurse As with most young people, what 23-year-old nurse Treasa Toye wants to see in the Budget is anything that brings down the cost of living.

"It is very expensive to live here and this makes it even more difficult for young people to stand on their own two feet when they come out of college," she says. "Anything that reduces this burden would be great."

While a reduction in taxes and some sort of help for first-time buyers would be of great benefit to her in her personal life, at work there are many more issues of concern.

Ms Toye, who works on one of the surgical wards at Letterkenny Hospital in Co Donegal, says something needs to be done urgently to stop the flood of trained nurses moving out of the Republic. Currently the same number of nurses that are being trained are leaving the profession, deterred by the excessive work burden, low pay and long working hours, she says.

Ms Toye and her colleagues currently work a 39-hour week, something she would like to see reduced to 35 hours in line with other healthcare professionals. Talk about removing the bottom two levels from the nurses pay scale is long overdue, according to Ms Toye, and it is something that if implemented will help keep newly qualified nurses in their positions and reduce the issue of staff shortages.

"We are hoping for an increase in staffing levels and more effective management of existing staff,"she says.

She would also like to see better conditions for patients. Too many of them are left on trolleys because of bed shortages and long waiting lists, she says.