Mr. Andrew Condon:

On a day-by-day basis the number of vacancies change. We would anticipate that by July we will have a much lower number than the 200 that have been reported today. General medicine has been highlighted as a particular issue. One of the influencing factors is our efforts to progress compliance with the working time directive to achieve a better working environment for doctors, something which Deputy Mitchell O’Connor referenced.

One of the measures to improve working conditions for doctors is to put larger numbers of doctors on particular rotas where they are appropriate. What we are seeing at the moment is that to some extent one of the reasons doctors are moving around the country is to take up posts in some of the larger sites, as opposed to the smaller sites. One of the solutions to that is to increase the number of consultant posts and lower rotas. In obstetrics, for example, we have a number of hospitals where there are three obstetricians providing cover. Senator Burke mentioned that one of the solutions to this was to increase the number of consultants. We have offered hospitals experiencing those kinds of problems the facility to apply for additional consultant posts in place of existing NCHD posts, for example, in Letterkenny. The offer has been in place for some years. In terms of growing consultant numbers-----