Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I do not have a figure to hand for the conversion of agency staff to permanent staff here but I will revert to the Deputy directly on that.

I am sure the Deputy did not intend it in respect of the maternity strategy but I can assure her, challenges aside, that it is not a document gathering dust in my Department. We are moving ahead with the plans to relocate one of our stand-alone maternity hospitals to an adult acute hospital site. We will be publishing an implementation strategy for the national maternity strategy in the coming weeks.

My message to young graduates is simple. They will have more colleagues working alongside them in their hospitals this year than last year. If they work with us, they will have more people working alongside them next year than this year. We are back reinvesting. Health Ministers in years gone by could not offer young graduates a full-time permanent contract if they worked in the health service. This is now happening.

The Deputy is correct that it is not all about pay. The recruitment and retention process which will be undertaken by the Public Service Pay Commission, in consultation with the unions, will not just be about pay either. Some of our nurses are coming back to the country, a fact we need to acknowledge. I saw it when I went to a recruitment fair in the HSE. I saw it recently when we took on 17 new nurses in Cork University Hospital to re-open critical care beds. Six of those nurses were Irish who had been working in the UK but decided to come back. The independent group set up to monitor the nursing pay agreement will publish its next report shortly, which I will lay before this House.

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