Mr. Bernard Gloster:

As we started to discuss last week, there are two sides of the coin. The recruitment part is about protecting what we need to recruit and also investing energy into going after what is available to be recruited. If Ireland produces 300 physiotherapists a year, there is no point in me saying I want to have 600. It is a waste of effort to a large degree. I have looked at the recruitment processes in the HSE over the last three weeks. I assure the Senator that they have improved considerably since I was last in the HSE. The increase in net numbers recruited in the HSE from a pre-pandemic baseline to last December is quite significant, which is a good thing. RHAs will have the authority to decide to recruit but no more than I have the authority to recruit today. I have a controlled number from Government and I can recruit within that. It will be the same within the RHA system.

The part the Senator is talking about is retention, which is much more challenging. I said that there are many strategies for retention, which we can speak about if the Senator wishes. I said last week that we are just about to have our next nationwide staff survey. It is literally just kicking off. That will tell us the experience of our staff. As I said to the Senator last week, if I walked into a hospital or healthcare service anywhere in Ireland and met staff members who put their heads in their hands and said they could not cope any more, all I could ask would be if there was anything they thought I could do that I am not doing to make that work experience better. That is what we have to go after in the short term to address retention. Longer term retention strategies will take their own course.