Pat Buckley (Cork East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is not anticipated because everyone has a date of birth and it is known when people are coming to retirement age. There seems to be, however, nobody in any of the systems who can flag this. Again, it goes back to reactive instead of proactive approaches. There is a possibility that so many staff will retire within the next 12, 16 and 18 months. Does Professor Murray believe a process should be put in place and an onus put on management to have these appropriate questions asked to ensure they can plan forward? Is Professor Murray aware of anybody who had worked in the system who retired but was then rehired? There seems to be a blind patch there too.

The crux is recruitment and retention. The barrier we are hitting all the time is that we cannot get the qualified staff. This is, apparently, because we do not have an effective way to train them or hold on to them. The only way to hold on to them is to give them a proper contract. Professor Murray referred to problems with recruiting for rural areas. I do not believe that, however, because rural areas are cheaper in which to live. We have a situation in Dublin where rents are so expensive that nurses could not be bothered coming to work in the city because they cannot survive. Many mental health instances are rural-based. We should be promoting recruitment to such areas as an option. I asked the Minister two months ago to roll out pilot projects in this area. Enough surveys and research have been done to identify the blackspots. There does not seem, however, to be any joined-up thinking. It just seems to be the various community healthcare organisations, CHOs, all pulling against each other. Looking at the figures for the vacancies, it is like shovelling snow while it is still snowing.

I just want to know who is responsible and where the buck stops. Who do we bring in here and ask why we cannot have 50% of the 26 vacancies in Waterford filled in six months? Do we have to go through the national doctors training and planning, NDTP, the consultant applications advisory committee, CAAC, or someone else? Do we have to go through all the managers involved to be told at the end nobody knows who is responsible?