Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

Building them comes with a significant price too and, as we know, a long delay.

Mr. Reid stated earlier that the committee should be giving people confidence that this will happen and encouraging staff to stay. I would agree with that but more than anything, the Government needs to give confidence to healthcare workers that it is serious about reform. There are still big question marks about that. Part of giving confidence is that there is a sense of urgency about recruitment. It is all very well having reform programmes set down on paper but it will not happen unless we have the staff available to us and staying in this country. That is why it is hard to understand that there has been such an inordinate delay in the consultant contract discussions. We talked about this previously and Mr. Watt stated that there was not an intention to appoint a replacement chair. I could not understand what that was about. It is six months since there was a chair in place. What exactly is happening about the consultant contract negotiations and when are they expected to get back up and running?