Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry South, Independent)
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994. To ask the Minister for Health his views on the Health Service Executive spending €250 million on agency staff to work in hospitals here; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [33838/14]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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The health sector has been set challenging targets in regard to the achievement of savings under the Haddington Road Agreement. The total amount of savings to be achieved using the Haddington Road enablers in 2014 is €290 million. Reducing agency costs is a particular area of focus of HRA implementation planning across the health services at the present time.

The Haddington Road Agreement made a number of measures available to the HSE in 2014 to reduce agency costs within the HSE while maintaining existing service levels. These include the Graduate Nurse initiative, the Support Staff Intern Scheme and the 5.2 million additional employee hours made available to the HSE due to increased working hours for certain categories of staff.