Brenda Hartnett

Hi, Ciarán.

My issue is that we've sort of heard all of this before and, unfortunately, nothing really changes in the agency.

I am myself an ex... a retired speech and language therapy manager who would have worked across disability and primary care services.

And during my tenure there, all I saw was a consistent...

disproportionate increase in the recruitment of non-front-facing managerial and administrative staff, while numbers across the medical, dental, nursing, midwifery and allied health and social care professionals simply either stood still or actually declined.

So I do get very cross when you hear about

The fact that they are so over budget, that's because the spend is in the wrong places, categorically and absolutely.

I would have been there 30 years.

No, I would suggest it has become the norm and acceptable, say, much more so in the last 10 years.

So I would imagine if someone actually were to audit

the staff and determine who actually contributes to direct health care delivery, you would find that we're outnumbered by non-clinical rules.

You know, it's deeply dispiriting.

It's really disheartening.

You know, during my time there, while I had been a clinician and continued to be a clinician,

I, in my latter years, was a manager.

And you tend to have to reduce your clinical responsibilities.

And it was, I mean, what was happening was just shocking.

And patient care and patient safety was compromised by the so-called infrastructural changes and staffing changes.

So it became quite a toxic place to work in, to be quite frank.

And what was the response?