It is simply not true to say we are not hiring permanent staff.

I just went through in quite a lot of detail the fact that there are 27,901 more people working in the Irish public health service now than when this Government came into office.

With the cacophony of noise it is hard to concentrate. Including in respect of the Deputy's own local hospital, the Mater Hospital, I went through the material difference that has made in terms of hundreds of additional nurses working on the ground, thousands of extra doctors, thousands of extra healthcare professionals. The Deputy can say all that and she can acknowledge that to be true, while also saying that there are still pinch-points and there is still more to do.

In relation to agency, I guarantee you if the Minister for Health said tomorrow that we are not doing any more agency, despite all this recruitment, your Deputies would be writing to me saying "what about this?" and "what about that?".

There is always a need for flexibility and agility when it is hard to fill posts. We are recruiting record levels, more than ever. We have set a target of a two-thirds reduction in agency staff in 2025. The Deputy made a very important point that I want to deal with directly about radiation therapists and cancer treatment. This is a real issue and I thank her for raising it. There are vacancies when it comes to radiation therapists in our radiation oncology centres. These vacant posts are still available to be recr…

Thank you, a Cheann Comhairle. I thank Deputy Bacik who is clearly raising an important issue here----

---- which deserves to be treated with the seriousness with which the question is asked. Of course education is a vitally important issue. The Deputy is right to highlight that there are some challenges and pinch points in respect of recruitment that I want to deal with directly. We need to remind ourselves again that the vast majority of allocated teaching posts are of course filled. There are more teachers than ever before working in the Irish education system. In March of this year, there were 78,646 teachers em…

Very shortly we are probably going to ask the people of Ireland to elect a citizens' assembly called the Dáil. I do not want to mislead the Deputy or the House on that. It is unlikely that there will be any further citizens' assemblies proposed by this Government. I would like to say on the record of the House that I do see merit in a citizens' assembly on education. We have had quite a lot of them and my truthful view is that I am not a big fan of having many more. There are many complexities and important issues …

Come on.

They are not.

We will not scrap the pay and numbers strategy because that is how you run the country. You run Government Departments and public services by providing a budget that is voted through this House. That budget then translates into a number of positions in any public service agency and then the agency or the Minister responsible ensures those positions are filled. If it is the position of the Deputy that there should not be any budget at all linked to employment, that is radical but maybe-----

Excuse me, sorry.

I thank the Ceann Comhairle. We do not need to use language in this House about "deceiving" and "gaslighting". I have facts, which I have outlined. The Deputy can tell me-----

The Deputy can wave his sheet of paper, but-----

The Deputy will get another chance in a minute, so it would be appreciated if he could give me a little opportunity to respond. Does he accept that 9,375 additional nurses and midwives are now working in the health service compared with 2020, that there are 4,092 health and social care professionals additional to 2020 or that there are an additional 3,330 doctors and dentists? Those are facts I am putting on the record of the House. They are not numbers. They are real people who get up out of bed every day and go t…

I am kind of baffled by the fact the Deputy thinks it is breaking news - hold the front page - that organisations are given a budget and can employ people within that budget. The budget we have given for the health service allows it to hire 7,500 more people between the end of this year and the end of next year. Last year saw the highest number of staff ever recruited in the history of the HSE. It seems that when I quote facts, I am bamboozling people or spinning, but when the Deputy quotes them, they are absolute …

The faux outrage must be utterly exhausting. In St. Michael's Hospital, the Deputy's hospital, as he calls it-----

In the hospital in the Deputy's constituency, there has been a 5% increase in staffing levels since this Government came to office. That is the truth. More people are working in that hospital. Despite the Deputy's constant talking-down of the Government's recruitment efforts-----

-----more people are working in that hospital. When it comes to safe staffing, which is the agreed staffing structure we have for safe nursing levels in the Irish health service, every single post in the safe staffing structure is now funded. Of the 2,000 posts, 1,500 are filled; 500 are fully funded. These are the facts.

I do not think there is a person on any side of this House, or in Ireland, who is not both utterly horrified and heartbroken at what is emerging in relation to the case of young Kyran Durnin. This is nothing to do with political establishment or any sort of rhetoric. This is just to do with basic humanity. An eight-year-old boy effectively went missing for two years and the saddest and most painful thing is that nobody asked why or where he was for that period of time. Any one of us thinking that this could happen …