Dr. John Hillery:

My chief executive has said she will supply what figures we can to the committee or else point the committee in the right direction for those we cannot provide. The impact of leave has been such as to close down services. Last summer I was contacted by a very specialist service in the south of the country. There was one consultant who was taking parental leave so she was told by the HSE that the service would close because there was no leadership for the multidisciplinary team. There should be more than one consultant in order that one of them can be off for whatever reason. The impact can be that bad or else it can slow things down and increase the bottleneck in the waiting list. Whatever one's training, all the colleagues I have worked with, be they nurses, social workers or psychologists, want the cover of a consultant because of the various approaches taken by the courts in Ireland. As responsibilities are usually pointed towards the consultant, there must be a consultant involved from the point of view of carrying the responsibility. Even if the person is only off for a week or two it can slow down movement through the waiting list.

It is hard for me to say what is a fair salary given that I am at the other end of my career. I do not know if I should ask Dr. Plunkett to respond or whether she will be slaughtered by her colleagues.