Professor Colette Cowan:

We undertake planning all the time around retirements. We know when they are coming. Our HR teams work consistently on this aspect. We interview for nurses every week, for example. There is a continuous development of panels. Consultants will indicate to me when they are planning to retire. We usually bring in locum cover straightaway and then we quickly put out the advertisements. Members of our HR team are travelling all over, and doing fairs in London, Birmingham and Manchester now, to recruit staff to come back to Ireland. We believe they probably will return to Ireland now because of Brexit, etc. That work is under way all the time. We also work in Europe, with many doctors coming from there as well to work in our system. Therefore, we have a plan.