Ms Colette Walsh:

If one looks at the profile of agency staff, 86% of our workforce is female and aged between 25 and 50. As such, they are in their childbearing years. Most of those young females have young families which the shorter working year suits. We gave this as an incentive to retain staff. The HSE was not providing career breaks when we transferred from it and we made an agreement at management level then to facilitate the shorter working year. There are also 306 staff on parental leave.