Dr. Susan Finnerty:

Many factors are involved in recruitment to approved posts. The people appointed to posts in areas such as Donegal and Kerry are working in isolation. For example, an occupational therapist would need to travel quite some distance to meet colleagues or to attend conferences and so on. As Deputy O'Reilly said, people who work in those jobs want to develop themselves and so on, but they can be very isolated in some areas. It becomes a vicious circle: the less staff the service has, the less likely it is to attract. It can also be hard to retain the people who are there. It is not quite as simple as having the posts and advertising; there are other factors.