Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I entirely agree with Deputy Calleary on the final point he made. As he said, pay will play a role but there are many other matters at stake here, particularly the issue of career planning. When people enter any kind of job, but particularly a front-line service job, they have a reasonable expectation that they will know how their career is going to be planned for the foreseeable future. This is an issue that I discussed with the commission and it will be an important factor in understanding where we have difficulties. It is my view that we do not have a generalised recruitment difficulty but we may well have specific retention challenges in particular areas in our country and in particular specialties.

On the Deputy's first point about agency staff, I will ask the commission to include that in its work.

See this speech in context