Mr. Tony O'Brien:

The Keane report, which was circulated to the committee, is primarily around the recruitment of consultants. Retention is an issue for each of the hospital groups. I should have said this in response to the earlier question. One of the primary objectives is to develop a strategic plan for the way services are distributed throughout those groups. There is guidance issued from the Department of Health relating to each of those. That work has not progressed at the speed originally intended. Some of the issues around retention and recruitment are the way services are distributed across hospitals, the way rotas are structured and, for non-consultant hospital doctors, the extent of Ireland's compliance with the European working time directive. In the past two years we instituted the introduction into every hospital of a lead non-consultant hospital doctor, a bit like one would see in American television programmes of a lead resident or a chief resident, to represent the interests of non-consultant hospital doctors in the management process of the hospitals to ensure their situation is dealt with better.