Dr. Ciaran Browne:

To follow on from what Mr. Condon said, each service has a clinical director and a hospital manager who is projecting forward as to what the potential vacancies will be. Each of those hospitals must make their adjustments based on the projections but we must also acknowledge the fact that there are a lot of modernisation, service improvement and initiatives happening at local level. We have referenced some of them previously such as the reallocation of some of the tasks previously carried out by junior doctors to nurses, but also a lot of the business processes that are used within hospitals are being significantly improved, as well as the clinical programmes that are under way across many hospitals. There is much good work going on that helps to cushion the impact of any reduction or vacancy levels in hospitals.

As Mr. Condon acknowledged, there are hospitals which previously carried a vacancy and therefore the numbers quoted today might not necessarily be an increase in the current vacancy rate and they are covering the gap in the number of vacancies by potential-----