Dr. Sara Burke:

One of Deputy Shortall's questions was who should do this workforce planning. I heard her ask the Secretary General, Mr. Watt, whether help was needed and if a team was needed to work on this aspect. He said "No, we are fine", or that is my memory of his response. I disagree. I think we need that. The most crucial issue in delivering on reform is our workforce and we have staff who are very tired and burned-out being continuously asked to do more. In this context, what is needed is a national task force, with all the key players working together and with an engine room of academics, and obviously I would say that, and other people. A lot of number crunching and important processing work must be done, as well as collecting data and getting people on board. This undertaking, therefore, should be a really high political priority. A national task force and a team with independent expertise should be supporting the Department of Health and the HSE in this endeavour. I say this because, from my perspective, they do not have the capacity to do this work themselves.