Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

It is very difficult to make sense of the thinking behind this in terms of patient safety and the instability people who are going through significant turmoil in their lives are experiencing because of a lack of a definite pathway to permanent accommodation. If Mr. Farnan cannot tell me now, will he let me know the number of those 20 people who went into nursing homes and the number who went into facilities in which they shared accommodation? If he cannot give me that information now, will he pass it on to the committee after the meeting for us to consider afterwards? More generally, the witnesses have talked about recruitment presenting a challenge. We know that because we have talked about this before. It is a recurring theme.

I understand there is a national panel for counselling for primary care and the HSE then offers contracts out of that. The HSE will have done some assessment of what is needed. There was one CHO area where, after having been on the panel, two candidates were offered a job, but after a service financial review, the offers were withdrawn. The HSE has a problem recruiting and then this kind of thing happens. How would that happen? I got this reply to a parliamentary question on 5 September. I cannot understand how that would happen if there is a panel and the HSE knows what the needs are. Why would the HSE offer positions and then withdraw them? It seems incredible.