Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Independent)

The Minister for Finance is responsible for the public service. That is factually correct. Of course we can reduce numbers within the HSE and I have said before, including last week, that the intention is to reduce the number by 8,000 but recruit back 2,000, making a net reduction of 6,000. We want to recruit consultants, specialist nurses and health care therapists and other specialists that we require in the service. A voluntary redundancy scheme for the public service was announced in last year's budget. We did not implement it in the health sector because it cannot be applied without redeployment. It would not be possible, for example, to have a large number leave from one hospital without being able to redeploy people from another. At present, it is not possible to redeploy from one part of a hospital to another. Any voluntary redundancy scheme must be accompanied by a redeployment scheme; otherwise, we would not achieve the savings envisaged and the voluntary redundancy scheme could be quite expensive. The people who have retired are those who were close to retirement age. That is why the number was higher this year.

The Minister for Finance will enunciate pay policy in his budget speech tomorrow. Any pay reductions that apply to Ministers, politicians and public servants will apply to posts within the HSE and the wider public service.

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