Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail)

I hope the HSE will live up to that commitment that it should not, where possible, rehire those who retired under the incentivised scheme for early retirement. The real difficulty is when we pare back the figures and look at the number of agency staff being employed by the HSE. We are talking about a potential €204 million this year, which does not take into account the full impact of locums. The budget could be dramatically more than €204 million.

The Minister gave a commitment last year in the Dáil when he said the costs of agency staff were horrendous. So far, in the first quarter of this year, there has been an increase, to €51 million, in the amount of money being spent on hiring agency staff. That is not sustainable. On a quick, back of the envelope calculation, that could employ 3,000 full-time nurses or 1,000 consultants. We must recognise that €204 million is a sizeable sum every year. It has the potential to address the deficiencies in front-line services by having a streamlined system of recruitment in areas that need it rather than depending on temporary staff all the time.

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