Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I made the point already that graduate nurses, qualified nurses and midwives committed to and coming through the international recruitment pipeline, emergency department, ICU, maternity and community nurses are all exempt from the recruitment pause. Recruitment of nurses has continued. That is this issue. The other point, which the Deputy did not seem to pick up on, is that expenditure within the HSE in the first quarter of this year, as confirmed by the Department of Health, is way ahead of profile. Spending in the HSE has not stopped. Spending has not stopped in the health service. The Deputy is his party's finance spokesperson. There needs to be an evaluation of all of this, too.

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