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

We published the retained fire service review. It went to Cabinet only a few weeks ago. Approximately 1,000 submissions were made, including many from the retained service. As a point of context, it is worth pointing out once again that we are very close to full employment in this country with 2.6 million people at work. This is more than ever before. We have more public servants than we ever had in the past. Recruitment and retention challenges exist across our economy, in the public sector and private sector and in well-paid and highly-paid jobs. Everyone is struggling to recruit and retain staff in the context of full employment. It is not necessarily as simple as increased wages resulting in more staff being available. It requires much more than that, particularly with regard to making sure that we have enough people trained and educated to do the jobs we need them to do and that we are able to bring people in from abroad if they have the skills that we need.

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