Dr. Donal de Buitléir:

I accept that, but if one looks at the report, significant pay increases are recommended to attract new consultants. A salary of €131,000 is not sufficient. If one goes to €182,000 and we find in the light of experience that it is not enough, a future public service pay commission will have to look at it. We have to pay people the salaries that attract them. For example, it was found recently in respect of two critical posts, namely, chief executive of the HSE and Garda Commissioner, that the initial salary offered was insufficient. It was, therefore, adjusted. That is what we have to do. I am not pretending that we have all of the answers, but if we want to have a decent health service, we will have to pay people properly to deliver it. By the way, there are very few of these people. There are 3,000 consultants in a population of 4.5 million and half their pay comes back in tax. The incremental cost of paying people properly to deliver a public service is a rounding error.