Mairéad Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

When the embargo happened, I was contacted not by a lot of people, given that not that many would contact me directly, but by a number of people, in particular young women who had worked in the healthcare profession and hoped to come back. Either they were in Britain and they were trying to come back, or they were living here and not on a full-time contract and were maybe working one or two days a week. This had a very serious knock-on impact on them. While I appreciate Mr. Gloster is telling me there are jobs available, at the same time, many people are finding it difficult to move home because they cannot be guaranteed they will get into a workplace. That age group of people, those in their 30s, want to have a full-time job so they can settle down.

Deputy Murphy raised the issue of the posts that were advertised on 31 December 2023 and then cancelled overnight. I understand there is a dispute about the figure. The unions are saying it is 2,000 posts and my colleague, Deputy David Cullinane, has tried to get a response from the Minister with regard to exactly how many it is. How many would Mr. Gloster say were there on 31 December and then, overnight, were no longer there? What figure would he put on that?