Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The difference is that the health sector was deliberately underfunded. I will tell the Minister why I am asking. Since then, we have had a moratorium on the hiring of staff.

I cannot understand why there would be a deliberate underfunding because we know that, when there is a moratorium on staff, not only does it add to the pain and distress of patients and staff in the system, it also causes issues in terms of cost. For instance, taking on an agency nurse will cost one third more than appointing the person who is on the panel waiting to be appointed in full. I cannot understand why we would leave that gap, only to incur additional costs. It is facilitating waste in one sense. We are leaving people on recruitment panels, who are contacting me every day of the week, and filling vacancies with people who are coming in on a temporary basis, because they have to, and we are paying them one third more. I just cannot get my head around that.