Mr. Tony O'Brien:

The Senator seems to have invited me to comment on the merits of the target for the reduction of staff in the health sector, which is a Government policy decision, but I am precluded from doing so. I would remind her of what I said earlier. Leaving aside exits by virtue of retirement, including those that may be stimulated by the grace period under the Haddington Road agreement, which only concerns people paid in excess of €65,000 and who are likely to have a pension in excess of €32,000 who have a financial incentive to go by August - a relatively small slice of the organisation - where there are voluntary exit programmes, we will not permit front-line key staff who would have to be replaced to leave under those schemes. Consequently, there is a significant risk that the 2,600 figure mentioned may not be achieved. We also seek to employ significant additional staff in other areas. Therefore, the net number required to leave to balance this is somewhat higher.

I have said clearly that we will not seek to do or permit to be done things that have a direct, adverse consequence either on patient safety or which will increase our overall costs. One of the reasons we felt it reasonable to take funds from the pension pot was because we do not see that number of staff leaving naturally through attrition. I hope this is a reasonable answer to the question.