Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

This is the question. There was a major initiative to be on call for Ireland and 70,000 people responded. We see from some of the figures that more than 1,000 people have been interviewed. How many of them have been recruited and are in position? I know from my wife's experience that she reregistered as a nurse a month ago and received one call from the be on call for Ireland initiative, which was last Saturday. She decided not to wait for that process and to go directly to the HSE to offer her services. Even today, a month later, she has still not been offered a position, despite the fact that nursing homes and acute hospitals throughout Donegal and throughout the State are under huge pressure because of staffing.

This is not an isolated incident. We have many other examples, including one of my colleagues, a Deputy, who also answered that call but has not been contacted to date. Is there an issue with how this process is working? There is a huge amount of goodwill from people who are willing to go back into the service to assist people on the front line but they are not getting a call up at this time.

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