Ms Susan Clyne:

I will deal with the salaries for consultant posts and then my colleague, Dr. Sadlier, will deal with the IT staff. All healthcare workers should be rewarded appropriately for their post. The issue of the salary for consultants is regarding a specific and unique cut that was imposed in 2012 on consultants only that was on top of all of the other financial emergency measures in the public interest, FEMPI, cuts that all healthcare workers suffered. It is an extra 30% cut that was targeted - and politically targeted - at consultants. It saved the State hardly any amount of money but destroyed the health service and destroyed the recruitment of consultants into the public system and we are still suffering from that cut now.