Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal North East, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

642. To ask the Minister for Health the reason supplementary panels are being commenced by the national recruitment service to fill nursing posts, given that panels are in place since 2012; and his views that this is fair to applicants. [37178/15]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Health Business Services HR (National Recruitment Service) conducts the majority of recruitment on behalf of the HSE. All of this recruitment is conducted under legislation, the Public Service Management (Recruitment and Appointments) Act 2004, which is underpinned by codes of practice. This includes recruitment for the majority of nursing posts. These codes of practice can be found at (www.cpsa.ie).

The Health Business Services HR continuously conducts recruitment processes to supplement existing candidate pools/ panels. In addition, it is sometimes the case that additional recruitment campaigns are conducted in order to fill specialist posts or posts in specific regional locations. As nurses form the largest cohort of healthcare staff it is essential that the HSE makes every effort to ensure that appropriate panels are in place and constantly replenished to ensure that as nursing vacancies arise these posts can be filled in a timely manner. It is common practice within the HSE to operate supplementary panels to ensure that there is an ongoing supply of suitably qualified nurses to meet the service demand.