Mr. Liam Woods:

Perhaps I can make some comment. At local level, hospitals undertake exit surveys so they have some awareness of the reasons. Some of the reasons are things Deputy O'Reilly referred to, such as the desire to travel among younger students and the nature of the work, which can be stressful at times. That has been reported and, in our dialogues with the INMO and our own staff, we are very aware of that. Income and the earnable net income have become a challenge. Opportunities for education and development are also an incentive and are desired by staff so the extent to which we provide that, which is quite extensive, is an attractor.

I will make a point on agency staff. The acute system reduced agency staff in gross terms by €39 million last year, so there has been some success at conversion. It continues to do that this year. We have had some success converting clinical agencies specifically. There is still a very high number of agency staff. It does not negate the discussion. We are making some progress.