Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Is it? We look forward to that and to the right result.

I raise the issue of the agency staff in hospitals, in particular those in Mayo University Hospital, and the fact €5.3 million was spent in 2017 on agency staff in that hospital. That is neither prudent nor sustainable when we have a situation where there are more than 700,000 people on waiting lists and there are so many other gaps to be filled. We know agency staff are more expensive. We also know that within a system, permanent sustainable teams are needed, teams who are used to working with each other and who know the run of the mill and the environment they are working in. We need consistency and that cannot happen in a situation where there is an over-dependence on agency staff.

This did not happen today or yesterday. It found its roots in the moratorium that was imposed on healthcare staff, which should never have been put in place. We should have protected our health service and staff above and beyond anything else. I talked yesterday about the National Pensions Reserve Fund being given to the bankers. We should have prioritised our health service and staff who do a wonderful job. The retention and recruitment crisis has never been fixed. Last year the State spent €105 million on agency doctors alone. That is not sustainable either. In Mayo, €1.6 million was spent on medical and dental staff. It is right across the board and those figures do not add up in a system where there are constant overruns and so many gaps that need to be filled.

We need a real examination of the education system in the area of the training of medical staff and doctors. We have the health professions admission test, HPAT, now but my great fear is that there are wonderful young people who would make brilliant doctors and have a sense of social justice and righteousness but because their home lives are perhaps not conducive to excelling in their leaving certificates, they are barred from that for life. That should not be the case. Our education system should be re-examined in that regard because the problem of recruitment and retention will not go away. We need to address the issues of pay and conditions also. I ask the Minister to come into the House, specifically to deal with the issue of aligning the education system with the health service to see what improvements can be made there.