Sandra McLellan (Cork East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will only take a minute. I thank the witnesses for their presentation. I will go straight into my few questions. It was mentioned that the board received €1.6 million to help implement the legislation. I note that the witnesses stated the legislation also provided for a mandatory competence assurance scheme, which has not been commenced yet. We are nearly three years on. Why has it not been commenced and when is it likely to happen?

I noted that, according to the document, it takes approximately one week to register 1,500 new nurses. It also mentioned a backlog in the re-registration of the approximately 1,400 people who left the list. Given that 1,500 can be registered from scratch in seven days, surely it should only take a couple of days to re-register the 1,400 and issue their certificates. I am sure it is only a few clicks of a button, although perhaps not. Will the witnesses go through this issue?

I do not know whether my next point is relevant to the board, but I will make it anyway. There are 1,500 graduates, but it sounds as if we need more and that, if we had more, we would not have issues with applications from EU and non-EU countries and the constant problems with paperwork.