Mr. Tony O'Brien:

With regard to staffing numbers overall, it is worth noting the decision announced by the Government this week, which I welcome, on the recommendation of the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, to defer the exit date under the grace period that would otherwise have arisen next August. That would have been quite challenging for the health service. The last grace period exit over two years ago had a very significant impact on health services, so that is welcome.

In general, we must have at least as much focus on floors, if I can use that term, as we have on staff ceilings. As part of what the Minister, Deputy Howlin, has referred to as the reform dividend as we move to the next stage of health service reform, we are very keen to ensure that this forms part of that dialogue. If we took all of the available international comparators and applied them universally to every service in the country and add up all the floors, we could end up with a building that is taller than the ceiling. We must have a different approach. As Mr. Carter mentioned, we are now going through the Birthrate Plus exercise with regard to maternity services, which is an objective measure and will be adjusted for different levels of complexity, bearing in mind that not all 19 maternity hospitals are the same in terms of the complexity of what they deal with. However, it is a very important issue in the health service and there is no single magic number, be it 100,000 or 95,000, that one can always say will be right for the health service. We must do it from the other way up and we are engaging-----