Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Socialist Party)
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477. To ask the Minister for Health the amount of money being spent annually by hospitals on agency nurses, and other agency health staff, due to the public sector embargo on recruitment; and if he will lift the public sector employment embargo in the health sector. [8153/15]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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The Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform announced in budget 2014 that he intends to delegate greater autonomy to Departments and Agencies to manage their own staffing levels. The change from the application of a rigid employment control framework, with its particular focus on a moratorium on recruitment and compliance with employment ceilings and targets, to one operating strictly within allocated pay frameworks will allow for recruitment where it is determined that this can achieve more economical service delivery. It will also allow continuation of the policy of recruiting front line staff where necessary to ensure service delivery.

The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform has advised that the HSE and Department of Health will be required to submit a 2015 Pay and Numbers Strategy as part of the revised arrangements. The HSE are finalising this submission at present. Following approval the revised arrangements will apply.

The HSE is currently focused on reducing nursing agency expenditure through the appointment of full time staff. The HSE issued a memorandum in October 2014 to management on measures to reduce agency usage and costs across the HSE and HSE funded acute hospital services. It provides for the replacement of NCHD and Consultant agency with fixed term contracts of employment, and limits reliance on doctors employed on an agency basis. It also provides for the identification of nursing posts currently filled by agency staff which could be directly replaced by two year contracts of employment and implementation of this measure.

I have asked the HSE to respond to the Deputy directly on the matter raised on the level of agency expenditure. If you have not received a reply from the HSE within 15 working days please contact my Private Office and they will follow up the matter with them.