I propose to take Questions Nos. 598 and 629 together.
The census returns for October 2013 showed a fall of 1,482 whole time equivalents in the health sector since the start of the year, 588 of whom were in the nursing category. These falls reflect Government policy that the numbers employed across the public service must be reduced in order to meet fiscal and budgetary targets. The health sector must make its contribution to the necessary reduction. Nonetheless, it is open to the HSE to continue to recruit nurses and midwives in circumstances where it has been established that there is an urgent service requirement and this can be accommodated within the budgetary and staff number limits in place.
Notwithstanding the need to reduce numbers employed in the public service, the Government is wholly committed to the provision of training, work-experience and employment opportunities where possible. Hence the decision to implement a Nurse Graduate Initiate and an Intern Scheme for Health Support Staff. The Nurse Graduate Initiative enables the health services to offer 1,000 graduate nurses positions for two years, at a time when job opportunities in the public service are very limited. Therefore it supports the retention of recently qualified graduate nurses and midwives within the Irish health system and enables them to gain valuable work experience and development opportunities post-graduation. To date 77 staff nurse/midwife graduates have commenced employment in HSE South, 256 nationally.
There is a global demand for nurses and that they are a mobile workforce. A range of factors, including opportunities to gain further experience, the levels of pay available, working conditions generally and other economic factors and social conditions in different countries influence decisions to move abroad. As the recruitment of nurses to specific posts and regions is a matter for the HSE in the first instance, the Deputy's enquiries concerning nursing posts in Cork-Kerry regional hospitals have been referred to the Health Service Executive for direct reply.