John Crown (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome our guests. I am sorry I did not hear their presentations.

There is a great logic to trying to undertake several initiatives on an all-island basis. I will be a little partisan. I want to ensure we have not been put on too much of a long finger in the South by the authorities in the HSE. I would have guessed from what the deputations have stated that, in truth, the population of the South was probably be large enough to sustain a unit of this kind. There is a logic to it and we will be supportive of it, but it says more about a country that is so desperately short of neurologists, neurosurgeons and neurology services. We have heard about it this morning. We have hospitals to which people with head trauma can go and never see a neurosurgeon. We have unconscionable waiting lists. Perhaps Dr. Walsh might give me a quick thumbnail.

I will finish with a question that I ask with boring regularity of all our guests. Approximately what is the ratio of neurologists per head of population in Ireland, the United Kingdom and internationally? It tends to follow a trend.