Mr. Barry O'Brien:

We report on five staff categories, medical and dental; nursing; support staff; health care, social care and others; and management and administration. The level of absenteeism, as of September 2012, runs at 4.69% while our target is 3.5%. It is incremental and slow but the improvement is consistent with any European country delivering health services. It is also consistent with Northern Ireland and the NHS. I advise the committee that there are no circumstance where anyone in management and administration is replaced in instances of sick leave. There are no overtime costs arising from absenteeism in the management and administration grade. It arises predominantly in nursing, support staff and direct front line patient care staff. The best performing group for absenteeism are the medical and dental group, where the absenteeism rate amounts to 1.1%. There is occasion to replace a doctor in a crisis.

The absenteeism rate for nurses is approximately 6.5%. One can see, therefore, that in those instances we are challenged to replace directly one for one. In the main, of the €169,857 in overtime, it is in both the medical and nursing areas. Obviously, it is not all due to absenteeism; it is to maintain rosters and rotas. I was asked about absenteeism and it is important to note that it is almost only in front-line services and not in all instances that we replace.