David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I do not see it is a case of either-or. We should always challenge the healthcare system. We should always challenge those at the top in the system to achieve greater productivity and to ensure we are getting value for money and efficiencies. That should go without saying.

My understanding is - the Minister often boasts about it and I accept it is an achievement - that the net increase in staff in each of the past three years was, on average, approximately 6,000, give or take. This year it will be much less than that. All I am asking is what we should have done. The cost of this would be about €200 million. In the context of the health budget, it is not a huge amount of money but it would make a big difference by allowing the health system to recruit at least the numbers we were recruiting in previous years. If we do not do that, we are training all of these graduates and where do they go? If they cannot be recruited into the public system - we are only recruiting one third of what we were able to recruit in the last number of years - what the Minister is saying to them is they should hop on a plane and go elsewhere or go and work in the private sector. There will come a time when we will need those staff. This is a foolish strategy that will not work. I accept that we need to put controls in place but not to the extent that we are only hiring a fraction of staff this year that we were hiring in previous years.

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