Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

The public sector recruitment embargo started by the last Government and continued by the Minister's has led to an enormous reduction in staff numbers in key areas of public service, in particular in the health service and in local authorities. The Minister's slogan originally was, "We'll get more for less". I put it to him that when one looks at the chronic staff shortages in the health service, leading to serious dangers to patient safety in our hospitals and to tens of thousands of children on waiting lists for speech and language assessments, and when one looks at the disastrous housing crisis with which local authorities are unable to deal, we have to now consider lifting the public sector recruitment embargo and getting staff into key areas like housing departments, housing maintenance sections and hospitals.

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