Dr. Roy Browne:

The salary for consultant psychiatrist - no private practice, type A - as of last month, was €185,000. With regard to my experience in respect of recruitment and retention over the past two years, I have been involved as an external interviewer for much of the consultant recruitment over the past number of years. I was appointed 20 years ago and at that stage there were approximately 20 candidates for each post. I was on two interview boards recently, one before Christmas and one after. One candidate was interviewed for both posts and he got to choose which post he would take. After Christmas, we interviewed a candidate who was not suitably qualified for the post. We are now in a position where we have 50 posts unfilled. Comparisons can be made on salary between many disciplines in many sectors of the workforce in Ireland but we are in an international market, which is even more competitive in the English-speaking world, and we cannot recruit people back to Ireland currently. The problem worsened because in 2010 staff were offered the option to retain their pension entitlements if they left early and saved the State money by not having to pay them their full salary. A huge number of consultants left, some of whom have returned as temporary consultants but others have never been replaced.

We have a significant problem at that end.

I cannot answer the question about the figure of 6.6%. Perhaps Mr. Varley might address it.