Colm Burke (Cork North-Central, Fine Gael)

Can I move on to another issue? This is about agency staff. I raise forward planning within the HSE and consultants or nurses retiring out. Going back 25 or 30 years, in each hospital, once a consultant was coming up to retirement age, even two years beforehand, forward planning took place as regards recruitment. Now we have a scenario in all our hospitals where the job the person is retiring from is not advertised until he or she is gone. Is any system going to be put in place to deal with that issue? That is the reason we have agency staff. If we had a breakdown of the money paid out for agency staff, we would also be talking about locum consultants. How many locum consultants are currently working in the HSE?