Mr. Kevin Duffy:

The thrust of our report is to suggest solutions to problems that we have identified. I commend the report to the Deputy.

Regarding the matter the Deputy referred to at the end of his comments, I am not aware of that report. The quality of accommodation in such places is not a matter that came within the ambit of our terms of reference.

Third, it is a fact that there are more applicants for places than can be accommodated. The number of points required to get into nursing or medicine indicates this. There are proposals in the report for additional training places. Obviously, a large number of people want to be nurses and doctors but they cannot because they cannot get into the training places. We believe there is a need for more training places. I accept the point made by the Deputy. It is a good one. The purpose of manpower planning is to identify the number of people who may leave, retire or who may simply decide they do not like that career and go off somewhere else. Proper manpower planning will anticipate that. That might well mean that if 1,000 nurses are required now we should be training more than that number to accommodate vacancies that will inevitably arise down the road. That issue of manpower planning is central to the recommendations and the solutions we tried to identify.