Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for this important question. To clarify, I would not describe what is happening as a recruitment embargo in the health service, nor did the new director general of the HSE do so in his first memorandum to his HSE leadership team, which I read about this morning. The issue can be accurately described as individual hospital groups and community health organisations across the HSE needing to live within their allocated budget. It should not be seen as a radical concept that when the House passes a budget which allows for the hiring of a certain number of additional staff, hospital managers and others are expected to live within those budgets. Where individual hospital groups or CHOs have not submitted staffing plans in line with their budgets, certain measures and controls regarding recruitment have been put in place. If a hospital or CHO puts a plan in place that is in line with its budget and the plan is approved, it can conduct recruitment but if it has not bothered to produce a plan it cannot simply make up its recruitment plans willy-nilly.

The HSE will proceed with filling approximately 2,000 additional approved and funded development posts. These are posts that Members of the House voted to fill through the service plan. It will mean extra nurses, doctors and therapists. However, the reason the HSE decided to introduce these measures relates to the high level of unfunded recruitment in 2018. Many Members were rightly critical of significant cost overruns in the health service in previous years and of the impact overruns have on other things we may wish to do. The director general has pointed out that this is for a period of three months, which ends next month. Posts that have been approved in line with development posts for which there is funding are being filled, but one cannot have a situation - and it would not occur in any other Department or agency - where people are hiring staff with no relationship to the budgetary reality which Members of this House have given them.

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