Professor Alan Irvine:

There was one question for me, three for Ms Ní Sheaghdha and one more general question. I am happy to take the first one first. The question was why I said it was politically motivated. We know what position the country was in in 2012. We absolutely recognise the global financial crash and the implications that all of our people had to deal with. There were mechanisms such as the financial emergency measures in the public interest, FEMPI, cuts that applied to every group in the public service. In addition, in a vindictive and vicious way, one group was picked out, namely new consultants. They had an extra 30% taken from them on top of every other group, in addition to the FEMPI cuts, so I am here to speak for them. They felt that. That really hurt people as well as being a financial issue. They were told they were not valued. The mood around this was horrible. I remember it well. It was depressing. I am a pre-2012 consultant, so I do not have any financial issue with this personally, but I can see the damage that it has done to our health service and to colleagues. People are being told that they are less valuable than their senior colleagues. I believe that for all crafts, but in this case, I am talking specifically about our people. It is damaging and the mood around it, the opinion pieces launched and the ugly soundbites that we heard in the media all created an incredibly damaging lack of value for new consultants and for people in training posts, looking at new consultant posts. I tell anybody who wants to listen that that has been incredibly destructive, with op-eds, including one from Deputy Shortall in January 2012. It was very damaging to people and how they would be valued. These are the people who we are now asking to go the extra mile, put themselves on the front line and continue under these conditions. I will finish because I want to give Ms Ní Sheaghdha time to speak.