Ms Anne Marie Hoey:

I will add, as Mr. Mulvany said, we offer all our graduating nurses permanent contracts. We have done that for the past number of years. Up to the end of last year there was a high uptake rate of that. It was approximately 95% each year and we are continuing to offer those contracts this year. It is not unexpected, as I said, as people now have an ability to travel that they have not had in the past few years.

We must be clear with all our nursing staff, and all our staff, about what the HSE can offer in further development opportunities, further career opportunities and so on. We are conscious people will travel and that is fine. They get good experience but we must keep in touch with them to attract them back to work in our services. We are working on developing a talent attraction and retention unit. It will be live in 2023 and will enable us to ensure we keep in touch with all staff who leave us for a while. We will keep in touch about the opportunities that are available in the HSE.

I note that in the past two and a half years, we have increased our nursing workforce by more than 4,500 in total. That, coupled with our international recruitment and the increase in the training places are the efforts we are making to increase our nursing workforce.