Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I understand that. Usually, doctors working for agencies are paid higher wages than they would be paid for working in the public sector. They are also more open to working additional hours. This would not be, I hope, an option for a person working on contract for the State. I understand the need for short term contracts to get us over the hump of the current backlog in the system but I do not understand the State long term investing time and effort in training people who when their contracts have expired move on to other employment. I know there is no guarantee that a person who receives this training and takes up a job will not at some point move on to more lucrative employment but one at least has some inkling that they have an interest in staying on for the longer term. Given the complexities of the social welfare system and the need for a huge level of knowledge of how appeals and so on work, I find the current system odd. It is not the way we should be going. My inkling would be to re-advertise.

How many positions are currently vacant? Given we have an aging population and given the increase in applications for social protection benefits such as disability allowance, carer's allowance, invalidity pension and so on, the likelihood is that we will need more medical assessors. Even if the full complement of medical assessors were retained we may in the future be faced with a need for more assessors. How many medical assessors are currently in the system, how many positions are vacant and has an analysis been done of how many more medical assessors will be needed to bring us up to the required level this year and, perhaps, in two or three years' time?