Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The programme for Government commits to introducing measures to ensure the more efficient and timely recruitment of nurses. However, the HSE continues to pay hundreds of millions of euro in employing temporary agency staff. Last year saw the largest increase in spending on agency staff since 2014, up €26 million to a staggering €318 million. Since 2011, when Fine Gael took office, the Government has spent almost €2 billion on temporary staff to fill gaps in staffing because it has continuously failed to address the recruitment and retention crisis. Agency staff were originally intended to plug temporary and short-term gaps in rostering, but the figures prove that, far from being temporary, there is now a reliance on agency staff in the health service. Some hospitals' dependency on agency staff is significant. There is a figure of €9 million at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, Drogheda; €10 million at the Midland Regional Hospital, Portlaoise; and €11 million at University Hospital Limerick.

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