Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It was trying to get that clear in my head. I referenced earlier the general funded workforce plan. When I briefly stepped out of the meeting, I checked the specific one for nurses and midwives. It has been brought twice to the Workplace Relations Commission and now it is going to the Labour Court. I emphasise it is the funded workforce plan for 2018 and it is now almost November. We all know it is not easy to get a date for a Labour Court hearing unless one is about to ground a large number of planes. Therefore, it is unlikely in this instance. If we are talking about controlling costs and getting value for money, if we do not have a funded workforce plan for the single biggest grade within the health service at this point in the proceedings, that figure of €346 million was never likely to be achieved, as there is no plan in place for the number of staff and, therefore, there is no capacity to control agency staff numbers, overtime or any of the other steps that have to be taken to make up the shortfall. Does Mr. Mulvany agree that the funded workforce plan and the workforce plan for all grades, groups and categories should be agreed at some point? We should be talking about the plan for 2019 now and not about the plan for 2018 when it is almost November. It strikes me there is not a great deal of forward planning going into this process.

Regarding the savings figure, was some of it earmarked to be offset by a contribution from the stretch income targets? We considered those previously and, as I recall, it was brought to our attention by the chief executive of one of the hospital groups - do not quote me on that as I cannot remember exactly who it was but it was stated in a submission that was made to us - that individual hospitals and hospital groups were given targets to collect money from private sources - I assume from health insurers and whatever else - and that stretch targets had been added to those targets, whereby if the target was €5 million it was stretched out by a certain percentage. Is the HSE still doing that? Does it still impose that requirement on chief executives?