Ms Phil Ní Sheaghdha:

The obvious issue this year is that the Government has instructed the Department of Health to stay within its budget and then the HSE and the health services have determined that, in order to do that, they will hit the lowest hanging fruit, which is the workforce. We can overrun in our capital spend but we cut back on the workforce because that is the only easy method of reducing the annual cost.

We are still running our health services on an annual budget. We have challenged both the political system and the HSE itself on this. The Sláintecare report clearly states we cannot plan on a yearly basis when we have a service like ours, which has a growing elderly population and an increased cost of pharmacology. We are very proud to work in a health service that develops and is developing new, innovative ways of looking after and improving population health. Unfortunately, we cannot do that and then cut the workforce.