Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 6 October 2022

Public Accounts Committee

2021 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 38 - Health
Health Service Executive - Financial Statements 2021 (Resumed)

9:30 am

Photo of Brian StanleyBrian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I acknowledge that. Mr. Morton is an expert on this matter, whereas I am not. This is his everyday job. It seemed to me, however, that it was becoming a real problem, particularly given that the service is running at about 54% capacity. We have little over half the number of ambulances and staff we need.

I will turn for a moment to the recruitment targets. There are 2,161 staff at the moment. I think it was said that the HSE needs around 850 extra staff to stand still, that we really need to double staff and that to do so would take ten years. I am looking just at the recruitment for this year. How many staff has the HSE recruited into the service this year?