John Brassil (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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I thank all the witnesses for their attendance. On the issue of recruitment, when a consultant retires, or is flagged for retirement, I have had the experience of ringing a hospital looking to speak to "consultant Murphy" and the answer has been that he retired and his replacement was not there yet. What processes are in place in that case? Does people flag their retirement two years, two months or two weeks in advance to give the opportunity for somebody to be put in place? Could the system be adjusted so that a consultant does not retire until there is a replacement there for him or her? It is a very difficult scenario. The person at the top of the ladder with regard to much of the decision-making is not there and therefore everything behind it begins to stack up. Then we have unfortunate consequences.

The same point applies across the board with doctors, nurses and all the way down. In the witnesses' experience, is the recruitment section of the HSE in need of an entire overall to try to go some way towards fixing this problem? The witnesses said there is a worldwide shortage. However, some countries fare better than others. As pointed out earlier by Deputy Neville, the money seems to have been put into the system. I would be interested in the witnesses' points of view on what could be done better? What could the committee recommend be done across the entire recruitment organisation of the HSE in order that we can go some way towards resolving this problem? I do not think it is going to come from politicians shouting about it. It is not going to come from the HSE trying to defend the indefensible. It is going to come from a broad-brush approach by saying this is how we should try to fix this problem. I would like the witnesses' comments on that.