Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

While the committee has probably already discussed this at length, we had senior management of the HSE at the committee recently and I put the recruitment pause directly to them. I said I am being contacted by nurses who are telephoning hospitals around the country, and I named various hospitals, and they are being told there is a recruitment ban in place. I put it directly to HSE management and they said unambiguously there is no recruitment ban in place. They then caveated that by saying that, of course, if they do not have X, Y and Z in place, they may not be allowed to hire anybody. It is certainly my contention, but is it the INMO's contention that there is essentially a recruitment pause or ban in place at the moment for nurses and midwives?