Tom Neville (Limerick County, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The global market is ever decreasing. Ten years ago when a person who had been working here for five or ten years decided to move abroad, it was a big step but now, owing to the increase in air transport services and IT connectivity with people being able to keep in touch, it is much smaller. They may appear to be soft issues, but they are the things people weigh up when deciding if they should leave. They are the issues I took into account when I last left Ireland. By comparison, when I left in the 1990s, email was only coming on stream. While we have to deal with competitiveness, salaries, the provision of accommodation and so on, psychologically it is now a lot easier for people to leave. It is also a lot easier for them to come back if we can get it right. Whereas previously when a person left Ireland, he or she was gone for 20 or 25 years, it is now a lot easier for him or her to come back. Based on what I have heard today, it appears that competitiveness is now more intense. When a person left Ireland 20 years ago to move to Australia, it was a big move, but it is not as big anymore. Connectivity is such that one can travel from Australia to Dublin, via Dubai, in 24 hours. I have made that journey myself. The issues with which we are grappling today are not huge.

Reference was made in the opening statement to high agency costs. Perhaps the delegates might elaborate on whether outsourcing to agencies is eating into the budget too much and also on the over-reliance on medicine?