Colm Burke (Cork North Central, Fine Gael)
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I thank the witnesses for attending, presenting and going through the figures.

I wish to ask about the figure of €7.8 billion for pay and pensions. Is there a breakdown of the agency and locum costs that were paid out because staff were not available?

The HSE spends a great deal of time training people up and down the line, be they care assistants, nurses, administrative staff or doctors. We are now reliant on doctors and nurses from abroad. Are we conducting comprehensive exit surveys when people leave? I have asked this question before. I have also spoken to quite a number of people who left the HSE for various reasons over recent months. Not one of them had been asked to fill out an exit survey. If the HSE wants to keep people, let us at least find out why they are leaving. We are spending a great deal of money on training, yet we are losing good people.