Colm Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank everyone for their contributions here this morning.

I wish to refer to a reply to Question No. 7 on vacancies in consultant posts. Today is the first time that we have seen the real figures but they are only in respect of HSE hospitals and do not deal with the voluntary hospital issue. We can see that there are 250 wholetime equivalent posts consultant vacancies at present which is 12% of the total consultant workforce. Let us take the voluntary hospitals which have another 500 consultant posts and apply 12% to them which means there are possibly 300 consultant posts vacant at present. What strategy will be put in place to deal with the issue? There has been talk about making sure we have a comprehensive health service but in order to do so we need people to provide the service. One of the key components to providing the service are consultants. When one adds the number of posts vacant, including senior house officers and registrars, the total is 462. Three years ago I highlighted the fact this was going to happen. Based on the percentage rise per annum that has occurred over the past three years then we may end up with between 15% and 20% of posts not filled. What strategy is being examined to deal the issue? When will we see the strategy change implemented?

With regard to Question No. 8, I wish to raise the issue of absenteeism. I understood previously that we were going set a target to reduce absenteeism down to 3%. The reply that I have received seems to indicate that we must accept and live with the current level of absenteeism. Absenteeism rates are not reducing but vary between 1.3% for medical staff, 4.64% for management and administration staff and 5.36% for general support staff. We compared replies received from other State agencies but we did not compare absenteeism rates with the voluntary hospital sector. From the figures that I have received from the voluntary hospital sector it is obvious that absenteeism and sick levels are around 3%. Why has there been no real change in percentages? Let us look at the graph in the reply that I received to question 8. It shows a sudden rise in absenteeism and sick leave levels in August, September and October. Why did the level increase for those three months? The same applied to the month of January. Has the issue been examined?

The total absenteeism rate for 2013 is 4.73% which means 4,730 people, on average, are absent from work in the HSE every day. Absenteeism is a major issue but there does not seem to have been any progress made to resolve the matter in the past three years. Why the variation, particularly in cases where there was 1.3% in one area and 4.64% in another area?