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

I have a few questions for Mr. Watt. I am concerned about the number of references that Mr. Watt makes to doctors in the context of staff shortages. Obviously, that is a big problem area but many other staff that are critical in the health service. I put the question again to Mr. Watt about having a chief officer with responsibility for health and social care professionals. That area needs to be very much brought up within the Department. The tendency is to overlook them.

I am also concerned that a lot of the responses to questions today were about recruitment. There is a clear distinction between recruitment and workforce planning. It is the planning aspect that we are concerned about here. Who exactly is responsible for workforce planning? I am aware that the chief nursing officer is here fielding a lot of questions but presumably Ms Kenna is more than busy with her area of responsibility. Who in the Department or the HSE does the buck actually stop with for planning? Is Mr. Watt satisfied that there is sufficient capacity to do that necessary workforce planning? I am aware that Stephen Kinsella was brought in for a short period a number of years ago. Does the Department need that sort of specific expertise to deal with this, given the scale of the problem?