Ms Eilísh Hardiman:

I can absolutely and categorically say we have done what we are calling a supply and demand, which is workforce planning, as to what the requirements are for nursing, medics and health and social care professionals. We have set up a group with the HSE, because the issues are broader than Children's Health Ireland, to effect that. That group has been established and is meeting. We have a work plan mapped out in regard to how to progress with that. Nursing has been a bit ahead of the others because it is a bigger number and a bigger challenge, and the other is with regard to doctors in training. We have identified what the requirements are. Within Children's Health Ireland, we are then looking at how we get the clinical placements and we are all doing all of that planning. The directors of nursing are working actively on that.

We are also doing what we are calling "healthcare in a box". This is an initiative to educate the primary schools because it is not at leaving certificate that students make this decision about where they want to go. We have gone out to many of the primary schools in Dublin 8 to inform them about what it is like to work in a hospital.

I do not know if the Deputy has seen what was done with STEM, when they ran "Engineering-in-a-Box". That was done by our colleagues from the development board. We have replicated that. Doctors, nurses and health and social care professionals have gone into schools. Yesterday, the Canal Way Educate Together kids came back into our offices and we awarded them some nice certificates relating to their understanding of where their future roles could be. We agree that we have a broader remit than just looking at what is coming out of the universities. We believe that we have to work with primary schools and the education system. What we have pulled together, with the development board, is a community benefits group that includes the education boards and authorities in Dublin 12 and Dublin 8, Tusla, the Garda, the HSE and Dublin City Council, working with us to see how we can leverage this investment in an area that is socially deprived so that the whole area would benefit from that. The hospital will provide significant opportunities for employment. The development board has been very successful in generating employment in areas where there has not been employment in the past. We have built-in contracts for that. We want them to build and see where the future roles are so that people coming from the local community-----