Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats)
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Under the HSE’s core operations, savings, as they are called, of €500 million in pay costs have been made. This is in the context of very many health services simply not functioning properly and some of them not functioning at all, because of the lack of staff or of any workforce plan of any significance, along with all the other issues relating to housing, culture within the HSE and everything else. That €500 million, in what the Department refers to as savings, representing an underspend in recruitment, relates to 8,500 staff. How are we in a situation, coming up to the end of the year, where all services are crying out for additional staff or even the basic allocation of staff, and the Department cannot fill the posts? How is it that there are 8,500 vacancies?