Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The role of the cross-departmental strategic work force advisory group will be to facilitate the views of stakeholders and to examine workforce challenges in home support and nursing homes. Potential areas will be recruitment and retention, training and the career development of home supports. I was updated by the chief officer yesterday on CHO 4, which comprises counties Cork and Kerry. They are strategically looking to hire 300 healthcare workers in the next three months. They have gone out on a very strong recruitment campaign, which is happening all over the country. The challenge we have, however, is that many people have left the home care sector and gone into nine-to-five jobs and into retail. Some have gone to work in factories, where the terms and conditions for some are more favourable.

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