Mr. Paul Bell:

I will address some of the points made by Senator Burke around the recruitment of managerial, clerical and administration office staff within the HSE. There are never any conversations on trading off. I want to be very clear that this is a conversation we would not be having. Anybody who is hired in the health service, at no matter what grade, is deemed to be necessary to the functioning of the services. Also, it is sometimes forgotten that many of these staff would have worked as agency staff and have been converted. The taxpayer is getting good value for money in that regard.