Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Then there is a breakdown of a figure for primary care reimbursement services. That is broken down by prescription charges, manufacturers’ rebate and pharmacy claims. There is a breakdown of the drugs payment scheme, the long-term illness scheme. It is all outlined on page 19 and is useful information for people to have.

Then we asked for a note on the whole-time equivalent staff working in the health services. That is listed on page 20. It states there are 77,473 direct employees of the HSE. The section 38 hospitals which are the big ones are St. James’s, 25,642. The section 38 voluntary agencies, which was the missing piece of the jigsaw, stand at approximately 16,000. There are in the region of 119,550 whole-time equivalent employees delivering the health service in Ireland. It is just to get the total picture because we always knew the HSE. It does put the caveat in that the number of people brought in on agency basis from the section 38 agencies. It takes the pay rates of what they are paid and the number of hours they work. It converts it to a high-level estimate, as it calls it, back into whole-time equivalents. It is as much as we were looking for. It gives us a close enough picture that a significant portion of 16,000 out of 119,000 people delivering the health service every day are pure agency staff through section 38. That is a significant percentage and has probably been increasing. We will note that and publish it. There is a lot of useful information there.