Dr. Diarmuid O'Shea:

We have a vibrant, enthusiastic and incredibly motivated staff and retaining all of them in order that we do not lose nurses, physiotherapists, doctors and other health care professionals is important. That is why it is crucial that enhanced roles are provided for them. Deputy Kelleher asked about workforce planning. It is important that good career pathways and enhanced roles are provided for staff to retain them because that will motivate people to come back into our system and bring back the innovations that we want to develop. I was abroad for some training. One can only be heartened by what happened last week in the middle of the red alert nationally, politically and in health care. The building blocks have been put in place by the clinical strategy and programmes division of the HSE in conjunction with colleges, clinicians, healthcare programme managers and health care professionals and we have a roadmap in the Sláintecare report to move forward but clear support is needed with all of us working together to drive that. That cannot happen with just the clinicians or just the politicians. There are difficult decisions to be made on funding but we are better off making them together rather than fighting about them.