Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It is an ongoing challenge in certain specialties in particular but there is no moratorium or anything like it. Vacancies can be filled. My priority is to ensure that the funding will be made available for those posts to be filled. It can be difficult in certain areas. It is an operational issue for the HSE directly but if there are specific challenges, we will work with the Department of Health and the HSE to see what we can do to manage them.

As for pay issues, we are constrained. We have a public sector pay deal that will end at the end of this year.

There is a real issue at consultant post level with certain posts remaining unfilled throughout the country, which is a concern and a real difficulty in delivering the reforms we need, the capacity improvements we are going to need, and the changes required in certain practices. Other than that, generally posts are being filled across the system.