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

I will ask a few questions. I will also keep an eye on the time, so I apologise for my previous contribution.

We are here to discuss the budget. Members will know that what I am about to raise is one of my hobby-horses, so there will be no surprises. Even the Minister for Health has agreed with me that directly employed home help assistants and home help assistants who work for not-for-profit agencies represent significantly better value for money than agency staff. I will couple this with a further question on the increasing spend on expensive agency staff. Is any attempt being made to convert those numbers? I am referring to the setting of targets. The witnesses and I know that, at local level, managers want directly employed staff, but we are increasingly hearing from constituents that they are finding it difficult or even impossible to get offered permanent contracts. There are permanent vacancies and jobs and there is work that needs to be done, so it strikes me as counter-intuitive to spend money on agency staff when there are people who want to work. Via social media and direct contacts with my office, I have encountered qualified healthcare professionals, including doctors and nurses, who have left jobs abroad on the promise of jobs here only to come to Ireland and be unable to get work. There have been delays in processing the jobs they were offered. They must eat, pay their rent and so on just like the rest of us. They are working, but for agencies. They are making more money doing so, but they would have accepted lower rates. There is no logic in keeping them as agency staff when they are willing to work as directly employed staff. They will get themselves established on a higher rate of pay. One's expenditure expands to meet one's income. I have asked this question several times, but I have never been able to get an answer. Does the HSE have targets? We know that it does not hit all of its targets.

Even if those targets are missed is anyone setting targets for the conversion of agency and overtime into directly employed staff?