John Brassil (Kerry, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The committee has felt very strongly from the first meeting that if the recruitment issues were resolved and positions filled that were funded and available, including CAMHS teams and psychiatric nurses, we would go a long way to resolving a lot of the issues. Recruitment is an issue which will go a long way to solving what is a very complex service. Anyone listening to Mr. Peter Hughes's explanation of how one person is recruited would see that something was certainly amiss in how we do our business. I have experience in the private sector, with the local authority and with the Kerry Education and Training Board, all of whom recruit a lot of people. Many teachers are recruited annually in this country and many local authority staff are recruited but the process is nowhere near as complex as what has been outlined here.

Ms Mannion has been in the job for nearly three years. Is what she is trying to achieve doable? Can she unravel it to make it as simple as possible and make it work or is the whole thing so complex that she cannot? If all 36 recommendations were implemented, would she have a system that operated to some level of efficiency? It is not there at present.

Are all the positions we are trying to fill funded or, if she fills a post, does she have to look for the finance? Does the HSE have to say it will only give a person a job when it has got funding for them? If the level of complexity in the system is not simplified Ms Mannion's job is impossible, as is ours. One of the first recommendations in our report will be to resolve the recruitment issue within the HSE. If what Ms Mannion is trying to unravel is not possible, we have to go about it another way and build a new system from the bottom up. Dr. O'Hanlon outlined the issue with consultants and Mr. Hughes spoke about the issues with nurses and other staff. What is there at the moment is absolutely unworkable.