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

Some of the matters that the Cathaoirleach referred to jumped out at me, for example, plumbing services. The amount seems substantial for something that is of an emergency nature. We can differentiate between purchases required due to time sensitivities and patient-specific requirements for cardiology procedures. Those are completely understandable, given the nature of what is involved in children's healthcare, and we do not want to impede actions that need to happen quickly from a clinical point of view, but it shows a lack of workforce planning. The agency recruitment tells me something about the organisation. This organisation will be running a large children's hospital, so it is important that we not only see these lists, but we also see how Children's Health Ireland, CHI, is functioning. A range of issues with orthopaedic services at Temple Street have been in the news in recent days. What do we say about these lists in terms of recruitment? A degree of agency staff will always be required, but that element is almost built in now. CHI refers to how it is continuously challenged by staffing shortages across many specialties and functions, but when will that change? Should we be expressing our concern to the Minister for Health about this as an issue that has come to the attention of the Committee of Public Accounts? There is not an ongoing relationship with agency staff. It affects things as straightforward as knowing where things are stored. In particular, it affects relationships with children in hospital. This situation screams “chaos” at me. We should be drawing the Minister’s attention to the fact that we find this an unsatisfactory way of running services.