Martin Daly (Roscommon-Galway, Fianna Fail)

I thank the Minister for attending today. I also thank the Ministers of State, Deputies Butler and O'Donnell, and their teams from the Department of Health. In regard to the pay expenditure projected on the budget, while we are not underspending on core pay, we are overspending on agency staff. That is bad value for money. Why is so much money being spent on agency staff? This has been a recurring problem over a number of years. The public would say that this is bad workforce planning and sometimes it is sometimes short-termism in terms of making changes in recruitment year to year. What are the Minister's reflections on agency staff?