Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We have an ambitious hiring programme in place for nurses. I have stipulated that next year, the hiring will be done along the safe staffing levels that have been agreed. There is, therefore, now a new system in place, which was brought in for the pilots, where the acuity of the patients in each ward is basically put into a computer and it will tell what the staffing needs are. That is what we are scaling up to.

The HSE believes, therefore, the levels it has put in for hiring next year are at the edge of what is possible. If we could, I would replace all agency staff immediately and I believe the HSE would too. The plan is to get to a point where, certainly for the day to day work, agency staff simply are not needed because one we have the safe staffing levels.

I will get the Deputy a note on the consultants. Certainly, from all the conversations I have had over the years, the vast majority would prefer to be on permanent contracts. The agency work suits some, in fairness, but the vast majority want to be on those contracts. To be honest, they have never really mentioned pay reasons to me. They have always said they want to be part of a permanent team, whatever their specialty is, and spend the next number of years of their life being part of that team and growing that service.

My understanding is that we need to fix the new entrant pay and equality fast. We need to put the Sláintecare contracts in place fast and hire people into those posts, keep the people we have, offer them permanent contracts and then try to get home some of our good people who are working abroad.