Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Thursday, 24 October 2024
Public Accounts Committee
Financial Statements 2023: Health Service Executive
9:30 am
Ms Louise McGirr:
I will come in on that. It is, and it is closely monitored. We are aware of the figures in terms of where those high earners are now. It can be region-specific, so if it is a location in which it is difficult to get another consultant or more consultants regionally. We do have that issue in some cases. It is also clearly specialism-specific, so where there is a difficulty recruiting to a particular specialism, consultants are on call more and there is more compensatory rest involved. Those are the areas. The way to solve it is by ensuring that they are adequately staffed to improve the rostering. There are a few things the HSE is monitoring much more closely. The level of consultants needs to be targeted around those hard-to-fill posts.