Mr. Paul Reid:

We would not fundamentally disagree with a lot of what was said by the Irish Hospital Consultants Association at the weekend. We spoke about some of the challenges earlier on and the contributions related to many of them. There is no doubt that the recruitment of consultants is a major challenge for us. It is a worldwide market. Having said that, over the past two years, we have recruited the highest number of consultants on a full-time basis in many years. A total of 406 consultants have taken up positions on a full-time basis in the HSE. This was not achieved in many years over a two-year period so that is positive. We are aiming and have funding to recruit more consultants. It is a particular challenge in some parts of the country. In many cases, consultants want to be in urban centres. This is not just in terms of hospitals. These challenges are also seen in community services. We are working with the various colleges in terms of the pipeline and what is coming through. It is a real challenge but in the past two years, we recruited a higher number than we have done in many years. It is still a major challenge for us.

I think I covered waiting lists earlier but I restate that we have a very targeted and focused programme to start the process of addressing waiting lists but this will be done on a multi-annual basis and it will take time. We have undoubtedly been impacted by Covid, particularly in the last quarter, but we have very targeted initiatives.

We do not disagree with the argument that these are all very real challenges for the health system. Their advice is knowledgeable but we have to start and the start of the process is recruitment, which we have funding for, and a very targeted focus on funded initiatives on waiting lists. Sometimes one could come into the health system and say we can do nothing but we can, will, should and need to do something for the public. That is the approach we are taking.