The high-profile recruitment campaign was launched on St Patrick's Day to bolster the capacity of the health service to tackle the Covid-19 crisis. He said it's a "startling revelation" that out of 73,000 applicants, just 54 people are "actually operating as staff in the health service". "Because of this, it's pivotal that we fully sweat our health service capacity," he said. This allows enhanced support to the health service by staff already being paid by the exchequer. The HSE said around 3,000 applicants are being appointed into the health service through other routes.

Source: The Herald May 01, 2020 01:39 UTC