Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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In the agreement with the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, earlier this year, we got agreement to permanently fund about 4,000 staff for whom there were no wages allocated by Government. They fall into two groups. The first is the extra 2,000 the HSE hired last year. There was no funding for that. The HSE obviously paid their wages, but it was not funded to pay their wages. Therefore, we have an agreement now for all 2,000 of those staff. The gap between the 6,000 and the 8,000 that were hired are now permanent roles.

The second is there were another 2,000 staff who were hired during Covid. They were meant to be hired for just a few years in response to Covid. Many more were hired and subsequently left, for example, those who worked at the vaccination centres and many others. However, there was a group of 2,000 who were still in the system. The individual hospitals and the community organisations – mainly the hospitals – were saying that the services those people provide are now core to what we do. In addition, there were some structural differences. For example, most of the hospitals now have isolation areas and different, bigger footprints. Infection prevention and control has not gone back to pre-Covid levels. It is not at the enhanced emergency level but the level that it has settled back to is still higher than the pre-Covid level. Maintaining that required staff. The HSE’s view was that these 2,000 staff are central to the ongoing operations of patient care. To the credit of the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, it funded all 4,000 of those.