Mr. Bernard Gloster:

To be fair to management administration sometimes it gets singled out and the staff can feel a bit isolated from the rest of the system. With regard to all of the grades, including nursing, medical, allied health professionals and management administration, what I have agreed in terms of the headline approach with the board of the HSE, the Secretary General and the Minister is that we have to approach 2024 with a full pay number strategy so the entire health service and all of the unions and representative organisations know exactly what the total funded workforce of the HSE is. We have to operate controls to work within this. Then there are opportunities in it also.

It is a significant funded workforce now. We are up to more than 142,000 full-time equivalents. It is quite serious. If we take agency and overtime costs this year in the Irish health service the budget line is approximately €330 million but the spend will be approximately €1 billion. There is management administration in this also. I have to take the totality and agree a controlled position with the board and the Department that everybody understands and that is there for all to see. When we reach the control, we reach the control.