Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It does not affect consultants or fourth-year nurses, as Deputy Cullinane said. It does not affect safe staffing. There are many important areas that are not covered by the pause. There are, however, some areas that are. I accept that it is a blunt instrument. There is no question about that. In some teams throughout the country right now, somebody has retired or left an important role. These people cannot be replaced, which is causing problems. The other area is where teams have been partially filled or not fully filled, such as a community team still waiting to hire a physiotherapist and occupational therapist and cannot do so. It is a blunt instrument but, unfortunately, there had to be a control put in place. It comes back to the point on productivity whereby school principals who hire the full contingent of teachers cannot simply hire more teachers on top of that. They just cannot do so. Any principal who is told that their school can have 30 teachers and then hires 35-----