Mr. Paul Reid:

I obviously cannot comment on the specific case the Deputy mentioned. I will give an idea of the scale of the recruitment that has been happening in the past few weeks in permanent full-time employment in the HSE. A range of contracts have been put in place. A total of 2,367 positions have been filled across the HSE. Approximately 1,200 of the people who filled those positions were recruited directly by our HSE teams on permanent, full-time contracts. The Deputy will be familiar with the situation in nursing. Our student nurses in years one to three have been given healthcare assistant contracts for the duration of this period. There are almost 1,200 such contracts. Almost 1,100 others have been recruited through the Be on call for Ireland initiative, albeit just over 120 of those have started. Approximately 1,000 more are to come in as part of the initiative and they will be given contracts.

I have no doubt that some people have been recruited on contracts of a temporary nature because as we went into this crisis, we always expected a massive surge for three months and that after that period we may not need to retain the full numbers we had recruited. Some people are on contracts of a temporary duration and that will be reviewed. We are now, obviously, looking at a very different scenario and a review will take place in that context. To reassure Deputy Boyd Barrett, the vast majority of people who have been recruited over the past while have come in through direct contracts with the HSE and others have been recruited through various agencies and sources such as that mentioned by the Deputy. That recruitment took place on the basis that we were dealing with a temporary crisis that now looks as if it will last longer. We will have to review that.