Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

My basic point was different. Nobody doubts that we have real challenges when it comes to recruitment and retention across the health service. However., one would think from what is said in this Chamber and from the common narrative that this meant there are fewer doctors, nurses and therapists than was the case one year ago or three years ago. The reverse is true. Notwithstanding the difficulties involved, we have had a recruitment surge in our health service. There are 117,000 people now working in our health service. Three years ago, the figure stood at 107,000. This means that there 10,000 more staff than was the case three years ago. In the past three years, 1,132 more doctors and dentists have been employed and there are also 1,291 more nurses and midwives. That gives the Deputy an example of the success we are having in terms of recruitment. The impression created is that these real challenges, which I acknowledge, are resulting in an outflow of doctors, nurses, therapists and midwives, but that is not the case. We have more every year. We have been successful in increasing the number of front-line staff in the health service over the past three years. There is more to be done. We have made some good progress in recent months in the context of concluding new contracts with GPs, which the Deputy welcomed, and staff nurses. The next step is to engage with the representative organisations of consultants to see if we can agree something there as well. However, it has to be realistic and affordable.

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