Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am telling the Deputy that according to the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform, the figures in the Department of Health are matched in other Departments. If what the Deputy is saying is true, it is true across the Civil Service. As I said, I have no doubt some of it is down to people who were on secondment because of Covid-19 and have left. For example, we have moved an entire disability team to the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman's, Department. At senior level, ten people retired; 14 were contracted for secondments which have ended; 25 left for mobility reasons, that is they moved on to other jobs, often to promotions in other Departments, which as the Deputy will be aware is quite normal; and 16 left and are accounted for due to a variety of reasons, including promotion, competition, resignation and death in service.

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